Unable To Format System Partition Of "C:" While OS Setup?
Oct 25, 2006
I've been looking all around the internet for 2 months for my answer, yet I haven't been able to do this. It seems simple to me. Why can't I find an answer for this question...How do you re-format the C drive?It seems at least simple to me. That's all I want to so. I have two paritions, C and D. C is my system partition, and install Windows XP Pro on it. That's all. In XP setup, it will not let me format it, so to me in theory, I'm at a dead end. So I've installed XP on the C drive three times, all in the same folder, and now it has taken up 10 GB (why?) of space when it only should take no more than 4.
I have got a problem with formatting my PC. Everytime I try to fromat it, it gives me a message (Setup was unable to fromat the partition. this disk may be damaged. If the disk is SCSI disk, make sure your SCSI devices are properly terminated). But i have tried about 6 different hard disks but still giving me the same message.
Somtimes I am able to fromat it but when the system does the first reboot after deleting the files, it starts the whole process all over again
I have a P4 550 running XP Pro.I'm trying to reconfigue my drive to use all it's disc space, I have a'Type 77' partition that is 7.6GB that I can't seem to do anything with.Partition Magic 8.0 can't seem to format it, convert it to NTFS, delete it ,or any other operation I try to apply to it.I've reformatted this drive 4 times now and the 'type 77' partition always remains.It does not have a drive letter, PM 8.0 lists it as Local Disc [*:]
Is it possible for me to use the system repair tool (the one that comes up when you boot from the Windows XP CD and press R at the menu) to format only a specific partition on a hard drive, or do you always have to erase the whole drive.
I shut off the computer and turning it back on couldn't boot up windows. It gave the windows wasn't shut down properly and I tried the normal restart option and it would just give a black screen with a blinking _ and then nothing happens. Tried loading in safe mode but it gets to mup.sys then "Press Esc to cancel SPTD.sys" flashes below and whether I press Esc or let it be, nothing happens after that.
I tried popping in the windows xp disc that came with the laptop, boot from disc, it starts up but then after loading everything, it then says "Windows is starting up" the disc stops spinning then nothing happens. I tried popping in a windows vista disc and it says "Windows is loading files" with a progress bar, when it fills up, I get stuck with a blank black screen the disc stops spinning and then nothing happens.
I tried to format my windows XP but it gives me the following message "windows did not find any hardisk installed in your pc" it is not the exact words but it is something close to it in other words windows could not find my hardisk
Over a year ago when I setup my new system and before installing most of my APPS, I backed it up to a small HD. My Win Xp Pro MCE 2004 has become a little buggy (MY FAULT).How would I copy or clone the smaller HD over to my 80GB drive AND maintain the larger partitions? I have Ghost 2003 but I'm not sure if it permits me to set the partition size when copying HD's.
I have 65 Computers need to format and install new window for the deployment this weekend. But unfortunately, 3 of these computers cant format and install new windows using installation cd. It can detect and boot from cd but when I hit any key botton to boot from cd after a minute the installation screen turn black then stop installation but the machine is still up.
Okay, i have posted thios at heaps of forums and they wont give me any useful info. So now its your turn :P I have windows xp cd. But it will not boot up. The bios is correct, and the cd is in there etc. It says press any key to boot, and i do.It detects some stuff then restarts and loads into my desktop Doesnt do anything. I have tried another version of windows xp pro. Same thing.I want to reformat, i need to reformat. This dialer is costing me money.
I think I need to change my operating system! I have a Compaq Armada E500 laptop, 4GB, 2.81 GB of used space, 1.18 GB of free space, running on "Windows 2000 Professional" ("Built on NT technology"). I'm having problems downloading certain softwares, it seems "Windows 2000 Professional" just doesn't let me do it. Plus, I've found there's other things I just can't do with it. I've been told Windows 98 is the best way to go for me + it'll free up some more space (you can see my laptop has very little space) + it'll let me download the softwares I need with no problem.
i have a gigabyte ga-ep43-ud3l motherboard, 2x1gb kingston hyper memory, 600w cool master PSU. 160gb Western Digital HD, core2 duo 2.8ghz e7400 processor. When i built i, it started up right away. When i tried to format the hard drive, when it said "setup is formatting" it gets stuck at 0%. What is the problem bcuz all my hardware is new? Ive tried switching the jumper, and the hard drive is new. Also, when i try to format it says 152625mb Disk 0 at id, o on bus, o n atapi(MBR). If anyone has a clue what is wrong, reply to my thread. I need to get this PC running!
I believe strongly that you should have a partition only for the operating system and others for data.If you system gives you problems it is much easier just format the operating partition and reinstall, then trying to find all of your data and download scattered through the a mix partition.Give some thought would you rather have you data safe and way from the operating system?
I am attempting to do a clean XP install. I deleting the existing partition and formatted the disc which had an error and now the disc is not recognized. How can I access the disc to format? This is on an older Dell Demension, I am using the OEM reinstall discs.
i got windows xp installed on comp but i wanna reformat them so i put the cd in and press enter to boot from cd and then press enter to make new installation then i come to the page agreement with win xp policies.... press F8 if u accept press ESC if u do not accept and press page down to scroll down to next page well scroll down works esc works except F8 it wont work i keep pressign it but nothing i try rebooting and doign it from start again i press F8 to accept and nothing
i have a primary hard drive working fine and added another hard drive 80gig maxtor as a slave and i'm using win xp pro.
i know there's computer management menu here in winxp, my question is:on how to format then partition my second hd,into 2(40 gig and 40 gig).basically i need the correct steps or commands.
Although I am not a computer wiz, I did manage to format the harddrive on my old computer by writing format C:, after restarting in MS-DOS while running Windows 98. With Windows XP I don't find that option. I can get to the Command prompt C:, but it won't let me format the harddrive.Any assistance with this would be much appreciated, I am trying to re-format and re-partition.
how come sometimes besides a format of a newly created partition windows has 2 menus for xp boot in boot.ini file why is this...not that its a huge problem...just curious
Every time I try to install Windows XP from the CD onto my friend's computer, I get to the blue screen where you're able to format/partition the hard drive and then his keyboard stops working. I don't know how to get around this because I can't continue the installation w/o the use of the keyboard. Unfortunatly, he has Windows ME on his computer right now so this issue needs to be resolved.
What are the steps needed to access one of my partitions, delete it, then use 1/2 the space and apply to system drive and the other 1/2 to another partition?
Now I am having multiple new problems. I want to completely erase the hard drive and install a new version of XP Home, not Pro. At the beginning of the installation process, it gathers system info. Immediately it responds with "no valid system partition" and the only option is to exit from the process. How can I get past this to complete the installation?
I have recently started my old HP PC up, and it's not looking good. It's so old that it basically makes itself useless, even though it runs iTunes. Anyway, it's got a bunch of junk on it that I don't have the time to sift through. It hardly runs right, and when it does run, it freezes up on everything. Here are its (horrible) specs: HP Vectra w/ a Pentium III 501Mhz Processor (yeah I know, it's not 500 lol) 8GB HD 256MB of RAM It practically sucks but it's surprising how well it runs on this CPU and RAM. Before iTunes 7 came out, iTunes worked almost as well as on a Mac (but we know that will never happen lol). Now, it has problems connecting to my wireless network because I have locked up my Wi-Fi security. I also have a surprising amount of junk on it even though the HD is old and has just 8GB. What I wan to do is switch out the board, but I have done that yet. What I DO NEED TO DO is wipe the entire drive clean, and reinstall XP. Why? Because there's so much stuff on it and it seems to have a virus slowing it down. I have no idea if it actually has one, but I suspect it due to its recent performance. I DON'T have the install disks. Should I just try to wipe it clean with my Mac somehow (instructions for Disk Utility for this would help a lot)? Should I swap the board and just buy a brand new, clean copy of XP? as I can't get on the machine and try to fix it myself. And, no, I'm not typing this on it.
My laptop has been over run with viruses and I've taken out 10 but my laptop is still a mess so I want to do a fresh install. I backed up all my data and went to boot from cd after restarting but it won't boot. I changed the boot order so the cdrom is first but it doesn't spin or anything at startup....it just goes to the windows loading screen and doesn't give me a option to boot from a cd. I also have an external cd drive if that helps....but I tried that and I can't boot from startup. Is there any way I can reformat my hard drive without using the windows cd at startup?? What can I do to get my cd to boot? The cd drive works fine but I just can't get it to work at startup. I am totally lost without my laptop. I am having to use my moms computer to type this so someone tell me what all I can do to get my hard drive reformatted and a fresh install of windows put on my laptop.
Ive recently purchased a used 80gb external portable HD for use with my new USB car stereo head unit.The manufacturers state that the H/U will only recognize the FAT32 file system. Hence I went about formatting (it came formatted) the drive as it came with the NTFS system. When I prepare to format the drive via disk management, it only gives me the option of an NTFS format and no FAT32.
i just got a new harddrive and i am not able to install windows xp on it.the harddrive is a 250gb ide. scandisk shows nothing. after running the xp setup from the cd, it copies the files and reboots, after which i get the message: "A disk read error occured, press ALT CTRL DEL to restart".i can't format the drive, its got a lot of important data on it.
I have made a boot diskette , added smartdrv , but won't accept the smartdrv command, I'm slowly going crazy How do I get to BIOS, and how do I configure to startup from cd drive ??
I am having sony vaio vgn-fe8555e which is having default vista but i have degraded to xp sp2 and worked well for sometimes but recently my laptop got attacked by virus..i tried to clean but cudnt do and i decided to format and install the OS but unable to format and even boot and load windows(PC will get restart if i go for windows) and unable to read XP CD for installation
computer started to run very poorly: lagging, freezing up, windows end task etc finnaly one day it would not go into desktop. would only give option to start in normal mode or safe mode. so i tried starting in both but would only restart into the same option screen.I decided it was best to format harddrive and reload windows. insert windows disk and proceeded to format partition and reinstall windows. it formats all that way to 90 % and then states cannot format partition further, harddrive problems and to trouble shoot manual. tried quick format and repair but still nothing.tried restarting without reinstall disk. says cant access OS of course!
I've been trying to reformat the drive and reinstall windows xp. I've done everything. The original problem was as follows: i rebooted with the cd and chose install xp (option 1.) Then it displays all of the available drives to format and install. Only my external hard drive (maxtor onetouch 300gb) was being displayed. I scrolled down but there were no more, and when I hit the up key i get a blue screen of death (with no error, message only "stop 000x00 or whatever
I have a system which was initially set up a while ago as a dual boot, Win98SE/Win2K. I had a need for the Win98SE side of things then, but now that has gone but the Win98SE partition is the boot of course.I want to be able to do away with the Win98SE partition completely and ideally add the space to the Win2K one, maybe leave it as a clean NTFS partition if that makes things easier. This would mean that I would end up with a drive with a single boot partition holding Win2K. This of course is not a trivial process as the drive letter of the boot partition will need to change. (I do want that drive letter change incidentally).
I have loaded the CD and have gone through the instructions just like others have suggested, however, the process will not allow me to delete the partition because it says it, "contains temp files that are required to complete installation". This is not allowing me to remove the partition, so I can reload XP and start from scratch. The partition obligates my whole hard drive, so I am unable to add a new partition. Additionally, I tried to format C: using the repair menu and DOS prompt without success
