I was wondring if anyone knows how I can format another hard drive on my computer......DETAILS:

 

I have got a second hard drive (40GB that I want to use as storage) it has got an OS on it (XP home) I have set it as a slave connected it aswell, my original is set as master and switched on. I went into explorer and tried to format it but it wont let me because there is an OS on it? Can it be done or will i have to format it on its own?

 

Thanks in advance :bow:

You may have to delete it manually. Delete the system files in the root of what would have been the C drive. You may need to change the folder options to allow you to see the files.

 

Also remember to edit your boot.ini file so that you only have the intial entry if there are more than one..

 

You should be able to remove any partitions on it using disk administrator however...that would do the same job,...

You may have to delete it manually. Delete the system files in the root of what would have been the C drive. You may need to change the folder options to allow you to see the files.

 

Also remember to edit your boot.ini file so that you only have the intial entry if there are more than one..

 

You should be able to remove any partitions on it using disk administrator however...that would do the same job,...

 

Thanks angus i will give that a try

do it in dos

 

-v-

put your xp cd in boot off it and when it gets to the install section, just format the drive using ntfs and then just restart.

 

or when you get to install or repair hit repair, then select the drive by pressing 1 your c: drive will be number one and the slave number 2

 

then enter fdisk then pick the slave drive.

 

or go into control panels, administrative tools/computermanagement/disk management/ then choose the drive and format

It should let you format the drive even if there is an OS on it providing you haven't booted off that drive, check in the BIOS what the boot order is, and make sure that the jumpers at the back of the drive you want as the slave are set to slave! You on msn tonight Vini?

If the jumpers are correct, the OS you boot into will be determined by theboot.ini file. It should have an entry like this:

 

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS

[operating systems]

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Professional x64 Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

 

If you have multiple disks, the disk(0) may have a 1 in it.Delete that whole line and make sure the default is set to disk(0).

 

HTH

put your xp cd in boot off it and when it gets to the install section, just format the drive using ntfs and then just restart.

 

or when you get to install or repair hit repair, then select the drive by pressing 1 your c: drive will be number one and the slave number 2

 

then enter fdisk then pick the slave drive.

 

or go into control panels, administrative tools/computermanagement/disk management/ then choose the drive and format

 

 

If you do this and the boot.ini file is set to boot from the second disk, you will not be able to boot into XP as it will BSOD. The boot.ini is in the root of C and it sounds like it has 2 entries for O\S's. You will get NTOSKERNEL.DLL error...

 

 

HTH

If you do this and the boot.ini file is set to boot from the second disk, you will not be able to boot into XP as it will BSOD. The boot.ini is in the root of C and it sounds like it has 2 entries for O\S's. You will get NTOSKERNEL.DLL error...

 

 

HTH

 

 

however xp is multi os based, so on boot up it will detect 2 different operating systems and as such the user can select which to boot off. this then takes pref to the boot ini file. as the user has selected the master drive to boot from. therefore the boot ini file can be re-written on the fly on boot sequence of xp. also all you have to do also is gointo msconfig and change the boot ini file sequence anyway by removing the secondary choice in the ini setup, by deleting the secondary drives info.

 

also as i suggested easiest way is to boot off the xp cd and upon the screen calling for installation choice, just select the spare drive to delete or use the command console. however fdisk can be d/l as part of a dos floppy off the net.

Nice quote from a manual...lol

 

Disagree with that being the easiest way.

 

Is going into msconfig easier than editing the file directly?

 

If XP boots to 1st drive with an OS on the 2nd, you would be able to delete it, format it etc. If the 2nd is booted into by default then you obviously wont...

 

FDISK will work if you get the right version. Although almost noone has DOS disks nowadays..FDISK from DOS 6.22 will not work.