Format NTFS? 1

[sixstrings4]

My computer has really been running slow lately and I'm thinking of reformatting my hard drive and reloading winxp. The problem is that my drive is NTFS and I'm not sure how to format from a DOS prompt. Normally I would use a Win98 startup disk and fdisk from there. However, I know that niether of those will work with an NTFS system. Anyone got any ideas?

 

[bcastner]

It will work if you use FDISK to remove all partitions first.

The NTFS partitions are removed under the FDISK option to remove other partitions.

 

[dakota81]

XP setup gives you the option to format before installation

 

[dcs97]

If you boot from the XP disk and start the installl you can remove the current partition and create a new one which you will then have to format, XP gives you the choice of NTFS or FAT32.

 

[jward52]

Why not find out first why it's running slowly! That's never a good reason for me to consider reformatting a drrive. Check for scumware & adware infestations using SpyBot Search & Destroy. Do you have antivirus software up to date and a firewall protecting the PC?

 

[sixstrings4]

Thanks to dcs97. I ended up doing what you said and it worked great.

jward52:
I tried everything I know to find out what why it was running slowly before I came to the decision to format. I ran Spybot everytime I got off the net. I'd also updated my virus definitions for Norton and it couldn't find anything. I also performed an online virus scan that couldn't find any problems. I downloaded Ad-aware, updated it's definitions and performed a full system scan. However, everytime I tried running it, it would lock up and never complete the scan. After that I googled everything listed in msconfig startup folder but found nothing running that could be causing the problem. I couldn't think of anything else to do. That's why I decided to a full format and restore.

 

[Budley]

If you haven't done a clean install in awhile you may be just suffering from "O/S rot". Windows needs a fresh install every now and then if you've done alot of installing and uninstalling of programs. I do a fresh install about once a year.