harddrive format question...

irishguy

i have a 40gig IBM drive that i am selling to a friend of mine.He is running windows ME and does not want to change.Now the drive is NTFS formatted how can i change this to fat 32???the only format options windows [XP PRO] is giving me is to format to NTFS.any ideas??

Diabolus

This is the only way i can think of.
Format it using the Win XP CD. Install xp like and choose teh format option. u shud get fat32 then. But i also heard that once in NTFSu cant change back but what can u do but try.

Clinical Waste

You need the:

"Ultimate Boot Disk" v4.3i or newer.
Can't remember the address but a search in google will find it.

This will allow you to remove the NTFS partition and then re partition and reformat into FAT32. (And do a whole lot more besides.)

Stephen

Just put the drive into a machine, run FDISK on it (you'll need some kind of boot disk with fdisk to do that of course) and that will wipe the drive and repartition it to fat32. Then format it and bob's your uncle.

Clinical Waste

I don't think fdisk can remove ntfs partitions.

The program i mentioned above or Partition Magic 7 will do it.

zAbbo

Of course fdisk can remove NTFS partitions, it will show up as a non-fat partiton(or none at all), go into fdisk, remove any existing partitons, create a new(fat) partiton, exit, reboot then format - it really is that simple.

Quigs Snr

Baz is entirely correct by the way. Had a dodgy XP install, backed it off to install 98 and used FDISK on the 98 boot disk to remove the ntfs partition and create a new fat32 one. Simple.

Inspector Gadget

...Windows 2000/XP can't format FAT32 partitions that are bigger than 32GB? (They can mount them if they've been created with 98, ME or similar - the max size for FAT32 is actually 128GB - but they can't format new ones over 32GB)

(See http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q184006 for the Windows 2000 flavour of this, and http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q314463 for the Windows XP flavour)

I'd suggest finding a 98/ME box or using your mates one to actually format the disk so you can use all of it...

Gadget

Saruman

I got a 120gb IBM from Komplett... i fdisked it and fdisk said it was a 32gb partition but once i got XP installed it saw it as the whole 120gb!

wish

Thats a good point but no bother....
just have multiple partions....
say some thing like two 20 gigs....

Inspector Gadget

Originally posted by Saruman
I got a 120gb IBM from Komplett... i fdisked it and fdisk said it was a 32gb partition but once i got XP installed it saw it as the whole 120gb!

You can fdisk, and therefore "see", a 120GB FAT32 partition under 2000/XP no problem; however, the formatting tool that comes with the 2000/XP setup programs can't do FAT32 partitions bigger than 32GB. If it's not your primary disk, and you can format it later, then there's no problem.

Gadget

irishguy

i dug out my copy of partition magic 7 and it did the trick.thanx

Saruman

Originally posted by Inspector Gadget


You can fdisk, and therefore "see", a 120GB FAT32 partition under 2000/XP no problem; however, the formatting tool that comes with the 2000/XP setup programs can't do FAT32 partitions bigger than 32GB. If it's not your primary disk, and you can format it later, then there's no problem.

Gadget

No what i did was use the bog standard fdisk.exe, made a fat32 partition using max disk space... rebooted and then format... Installed XP on that partition leaving the filesystem intact.. and when i got into XP it saw the ful 120gb on my c: and i was not expecting that since fdisk said it was 32gb!

Inspector Gadget

Originally posted by Saruman


No what i did was use the bog standard fdisk.exe, made a fat32 partition using max disk space... rebooted and then format... Installed XP on that partition leaving the filesystem intact.. and when i got into XP it saw the ful 120gb on my c: and i was not expecting that since fdisk said it was 32gb!

(Emphasis mine)

The underlined phrase above demonstrates my point. Although FDISK behaved weirdly, you didn't use the XP installer to format the 120GB partition, did you? Instead, you formatted it first and then installed XP into the already-formatted partition.

I wasn't clear enough in my first post, perhaps, but as I said in the second one, the 32GB limit only applies to the formatter built in to the XP setup program. As you didn't use it, you didn't experience the problem.

Actually, do you mind me asking (for the sake of my curiousity) why you chose FAT32? Is the machine a dual-booter (using 98 or something as well) or what?

Gadget

Saruman

It was going to be a dual boot... thats what i always used in the past.. XP and 98 for anything that XP spit back at me... but XP worked so flawlessly for me i did not bother with 98... I just never bothered upgrading to NTFS.. i did on my laptop out of curiosity.. i had never upgraded before... always in the past if i wanted NTFS in 2k or NT i made it NTFS during install!!

There was method in my madness at first and now its just.. ha.. it works so i will leave it well alone!

[edit] what is it with the microsft installer partition managers? NT4 you could only set up an 8gb NTFS primary partition... well on any machine i set it up on that is and i know there is a technet Q number about it that says tough sh!t! [/edit]