Trying to FDisk........Can't???

[binksfan]

Need some help..........

This new machine I built has a 10 Gig hard drive that came out of old HP machine with W98SE on it. I was told that when you start the install of W2K you would get the option to clear the disk of all old files. When I started install the only option I got was to choose FAT32 or NTFS. It said FAT32 files would be unaccessable if I switched to NTFS. Well, I don't want or need any of those old files, and other new pooter is XP (NTFS), so I chose to load W2K in NTFS also.

Well they were right, the Fat32 files are no longer available. The problem is all the old folders still show up. Some are empty, some are not, but they are all taking up space. I want to FDisk, blank everything, and do a clean install of W2K. I made a W98 'bootdisk' and was following instructions to do the F thing, and the first screen up after boot said, "NTLDR is missing, Press any key to restart," but pressing 'any key' did no good. Read instructions a little further down and it described this problem exactly. Then it said, W/ME 'boot disk' will allow you to access FDisk, but it will not delete an NTFS partition. A utility called delpart.exe is required." So I made a W/ME boot disk and downloaded delpart.exe onto it from Bootdisk.com. Tried rebooting my machine and got the same (NTLDR is missing) message on boot up. So now what???

Do I need to make a 4 floppy copy of W2K boot disk? Will that allow me to enter FDisk and delete the NTFS partitions......?

Anyone know what the hell I'm talking about that I could phone and they would walk me through this. I'm such a noob! I wanted to do all this myself, as part of a learning process but now I can't even blank my HDD. Great failsafe device huh? Just format to NTFS and you can't accidentally erase HD.

[Burke]

If you can set your CD drive to boot, you don't have to make the floppies. The setup routine will work the same (and faster) off the Win2000 CD. Then you can format the partition during the install. Go with the full format and not just to quick one, just to be sure.

[binksfan]

Burke...

I've tried the W2K install twice now, and unless I'm missing something somewhere, I don't get an option to format or create partitions or anything on the disk...

[Burke]

Right after you accept the licensing agreement, you should get the option to format the partition you're installing Win2000 on. Following the prompts, you then should get the choice to format it using FAT32 or NTFS, and then if you want a full or quick format of the partition.

[Burke]

This is an excellent link for it:

http://www.viperlair.com/articles/soft_guide/microsoft/install/setupwin2k.shtml

[YeOldeStonecat]

Originally posted by binksfan
Burke...

I've tried the W2K install twice now, and unless I'm missing something somewhere, I don't get an option to format or create partitions or anything on the disk...

Keep moving along through those blue setup screens...you will get to a part where it will ask you where to install, it will show the partitions, and at that point you have the chance to delete the selected partition, then create a new one to whatever size you want, and format it however you like. You'll see something like "To delete this partition, press D...the L", something along those lines.

[binksfan]

Okay,

Thanx much guys.......see I said I was a noob at this. Found my problem. I was sticking in the CD and click on reinstall W2K. That's why the reformat thingy wasn't coming up. This time I stuck in the disk and "Rebooted" like you're supposed to, lo and behold, I got the format screen and did it. Now back up and running on it. Got a lot of proggys to enter so I'm off to do some loading. Thanx again.