Reformat 2 hard drives 1

[mattrick1980]

Thank you, wolluf, for your prompt and concise response. I actually wasn't sure whether I should use NTFS or FAT32. I also wasn't sure whether or not I should start a new thread. Anyway, bearing this new information in mind, how would I go about reformatting both drives to NTFS? I will still use the 40 gig drive for the OS, and the 80 gig drive for the other junk. Step by step instructions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again!

 

[wolluf]

For the 40GB o/s system drive, best option is to use XP's built in convert utility. At a command prompt, type:-

convert C: /FS:NTFS

You will be prompted to reboot, and conversion will take place before windows starts after reboot. I've never known any problems with this process - but any process like this can go wrong, so do back up anything you can't afford to lose before doing it.

(alternative of course would be a clean install of XP - using XP install's tools to remove current partition and create a new ntfs one during the install - but as you're all set up can't see any point to that).

For the 80GB drive, you should be able to use XP's disk management (run diskmgmt.msc) to remove any partition(s) on the drive and create one new ntfs partition for the whole drive.

 

[mattrick1980]

Thank you again for your prompt response. The conversion of the C: worked without a hitch. The other drive is still proving troublesome. It is not given a drive letter (i.e. when I open up My Computer it doesn't appear to be present.) Using XP's disk management, it is still only showing 32 gigs instead of the 80 gig capacity. What gives?

 

[wolluf]

Is disk management showing the whole drive as 32GB or just a partition on the drive? If just a partition, then you can just delete it, and create a new ntfs one for whole 80GB (as 32GB is max size XP will create for a Fat32 partition, I'm wondering if you've got a corrupt fat32 partition on there).

If disk management can't fix the problem, can try:-

1. Fdisk from a win98 boot floppy - use the delete partition option.

or

2. Something like

http://www.killdisk.com/features.htm

to completely wipe the drive so you can start again from scratch (drive is being seen as 80GB in the bios - on POST screen at boot? - some drives have a limiting jumper setting which restricts their size for backward compatibility with older mobo's - 32GB is one such restriction).

 

[mattrick1980]

This system was working perfectly until I decided to dork around with it two days ago. In other words, the 40 and the 80 gig drives were recognized (at their full capacities.) I created a bootable killdisk disk, and that program again recognizes the 40 gig drive, but the other (80 gig) drive was recognized as only a 2 gig capacity. Hmmm... I'm wiping it right now on my computer, hopefully it will produce some different results. Have you ever heard of a drive like this before? I was using the FAT32 file system when everything was working, so perhaps your comment about a corrupt FAT32 partition is correct. Any other ideas? Again, I can't thank you enough for your patience and courtesy.

 

[mattrick1980]

Indeed, killdisk shows the following message upon boot: Invalid partition table in sector0 on 81h.

The only option given is to ignore. After ignoring, killdisk still shows disk 81 (80 gig) at a 1.96 gig capacity.

XP's disk management still shows the capacity at 32, but now there is an error message on the drive. It prompts to format the drive, but I'm guessing that it would still only be formatting the 32 gigs. Thanks again!!

 

[mattrick1980]

Also, disk management shows the 32 available gigs (of the 80 gig capacity) as unallocated. Any ideas?

 

[wolluf]

Have you tried the disk manufacturer's site? Many have a diagnostic utility (with options to completely wipe the driver - something has corrupted the partition table - so you need to wipe that and start fresh).

 

[mattrick1980]

Problem solved. I don't know what happened, but here is how everything was resolved. I updated the BIOS thinking that it just wasn't recognizing the full capacity. After that didn't work, I opened up my box and took a look at my connections. The HDD in question was set to both slave and cable. Don't ask me how this worked before. I did not touch the HDD, so I assumed that it must be a software problem. After changing the settings on the actual hardware, everything worked great. Thanks for all of your help, wolluf!

 

[wolluf]

Glad you're sorted & thanks for letting us know how.