format help

[SVO-1]

i have had such trouble with w98se & w2k lately i'm giving up on them. i have saved my data to a seperate partition and i'm gonna format both other drives & install XP. from in w98se, i go into DOS prompt and type in format e: <e: is where w2k is>. it warns me that all data on e: will be lost and i say "yes" and then it says that "e: is in use by another process / format aborted". what does this mean? ? ? once i format e: i plan on booting from 98 boot disc, formatting c:, then installing XP from cd. does that sound like the right way to do it.

[Easto]

You may need to go to a dos prompt in pure dos mode. Not from within win98.

[richardc]

i plan on booting from 98 boot disc, formatting c:, then installing XP from cd. does that

looks like you have a plan - go for it - you will still get the warning - just say YES

[AMPLIFRIER]

you can format both the partitions during the setup.


if 2k is ntfs....reg fdisk wont be able to see it.

you CAN just boot to 98 if you can (dont know how bad off you inst. of 98 is) and put the xp cd in and run setup........then when it get to the part where you select your partiton ......blow out the win2k part.

then boot from win98 boot disk and fdisk the drive

reboot

create the partitions

format

install 98

install xp

everyting kew:cool:

AMP

[SVO-1]

ok - thanks guys. i got it. XP is cool. i really like it so far. one question - there is a little thing that keeps popping up in my tool bar saying that i have low disc space on "c". i have that partition set up kinda small cause all i'm gonna put there is OS. all programs and other data is on different partitions. is there a way i ccan keep that thing from popping up. it's kinda aggrivating. actually 2 questions. i have blackicedefender. i tried to install it but it won't. i guess it's not XP compatible. what firewall are yall running on XP.

[AMPLIFRIER]

im running ZA Pro

AMP

[AMPLIFRIER]

how small do you have the OS partition set up?

id have it at least 2.5 or 3 gigs for xp

AMP

[richardc]

For my XP partiton, I use about 5 gigs just for the OS. To reduce the space required, you can kill the Restore option ( 12% of the Disk space) or reduce it. You can also kill the Hibernation option as well as move or reduce the pagefile.sys I suggest moving it as opposed to reducing it. You will need to keep about 4 mb in athe root drive but the rest can be moved. You can also move your My Documents/Music/Pictures to another drive with TweakUI. You can even move the i386 folder to another drive to save about 56 mb of space. If you do this, you might want to go into Regedit and change the location. All athe abouve should save you quite a bit.

[SVO-1]

i have it set @ 4.8gig's. there must be alot of other stuff there. i'll check. does XP have a tool/utility to increase/decsrase partition space or would i have to use Partition Magic or something like that. that may be why BlackIceDefender and the XP Service pack i tried wouldn't install. it says i only have 15MB of free space left on "C". i left the partitions as they were with w98se. i guess XP uses alot more space.

[richardc]

I use about 5 gigs - my swap file is on another HD -I use about 1 gig for the Hibernation - 1 gig for the Restore function - As for your setup, PM 7 is aobut the only way to change FAT 32. In my post above, I forgot to add that you can change the location of your Temp/TMP folders - there are two folders for each: c:\windows\TEMP and TMP and
c:\Documents and Setting........./TEMP and TMP.
If you aren't that adventurous, try reducing your Temporary Internet file settings from IE/Properties and click on the Settings button.
I suppose you could recude the size of your Recycle Bin too.

[SVO-1]

cool - thanks man. any goodlinks to XP tips/tricks/tweaks that you know of. i already looked at the stuff on the SG main page.

[SVO-1]

hey richardc - if you gotta minute, see if you can go to download.com or napster.com. i can't, just wondering if they got server problems or if it's just me. . . . .

[SVO-1]

i figured out what was going on. somehow, the 2.9gigs of mp3's that i had saved on a partition before i formatted and installed wXP got onto drive "C". i moved them and got plenty of space now.

[richardc]

Glad it is working - think I have already posted these but here goes anyway - read the warning on the first link:
http://www.blkviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg750.htm
http://www.tweakxp.com/tweakxp/

[SVO-1]

:)