Reformat hard drive under XP? - Comments Page 4

Thanks so much, you saved my life !!!! I followed the procedures to the letter, and it worked! Thanks again!

I put my Windows XP install disk in, but at what stage do you get the option to: "select the partition where Windows is installed so you can delete it"? It just installed another copy of Windows along side of my old copy.

EDITOR'S NOTE: After you press ESC to bypass the Repair option, you will see a list of your partitions. Don't press ENTER here... select a partition with the arrow keys and then press "D" to delete it.

I've got several hard drives, salvaged from discarded computers, sitting on the shelf (they have the XP Pro OS on them). I want to format them, put them back on the shelf, and use them again in the future. I do NOT want to reinstall XP Pro (or anything else) on them at this time.

I plan to put each hard drive in my external enclosure, hook it up to my computer, and format the drive. Will I run into trouble doing so, since the computer hard drive will be running XP Pro, and the external drive I want to format will also have XP Pro on it? Will the two drives conflict for some reason? I've formatted drives before but always to reinstall the OS on the drive. Not sure if I'd damage my computer's drive with the above project. Your thoughts? Thanks...

EDITOR'S NOTE: Should be no problem, since you're not booting from them.

Thanks! It was a newbie question, but better safe than sorry. The drives formatted without incident. Thanks again...

when i press enter to install Windows XP it tells me that there is no drive detected? Yet I run drive diagnostics and it sais that my drive is fine :S

Im trying to reformat my HD using the windowsxp cd however when i set my startup to cdrom the comp will not start from the cd-rom on my Emachines computer
Anyone have any suggestions about this?

I have followed the instructions to format and reinstall Windows XP. I boot from the XP setup disk. When I delete the partition (press D then L to confirm) - everything is fine so far. When I create the new partition, it gives me only 150+ Mb of the 320 MB drive. There are no other partitions. I have the same problem if I use Windows 98 fdisk and delete the partition and try to create new.
However, in the past - same computer (hard drive) the maximum size of the partition was 310+ Mb. I did have Acronis True Image Secure Zone set up and I cannot remember if I deleted the Secure Zone prior to reformatting.
How can I get back the addional hard drive space?

EDITOR'S NOTE: Sounds like there is a partition still there, left over from the Acronis software. Check your BIOS to see if you have a hidden or protected partition, and see if you can unhide it. Acronis Disk Director may also be able to help you find and delete a hidden partition.

My 80 GB hard disk is partitioned into 2 - C drive is 10GB and D drive takes up the rest. My C drive was kept for OS system files and such. Due to a problem, I reinstalled Windows XP on the C partition. Now, in My Computer, when I click on my D drive, it says my D drive is not formatted.

When reinstalling Windows, it asked which partition to install it to. I chose the C drive (did not delete the partition first) and then did a full reformat on it (NTFS)...and proceeded to install Windows on it. I hope you can help me. I have many important files on the D drive and I hope I can still recover them. Many thanks in advance!

EDITOR'S NOTE: Check out the TESTDISK program. See http://askbobrankin.com/hard_drive_crash.html

I had to replace my hard drive on my pc. when I went to go install windows xp, my monitor had a blank blue screen. I cannot get my monitor to show anything.

EDITOR'S NOTE: I assume you put in the Windows CDROM and made sure your BIOS is set to boot from the CD?

I have 60gb desktop hard drive which was full of bad sector that why operating system very slow. I dont know what happen format the hard drive without wasting of my time i format the whole hard drive and reinstall the window XP. Suddenly i check my mail that time i saw i lost my data. Then i contact with one of the famous recovery centre HDRC in Nehru Place here i came and ask about the problem they gave me some timefor testing and recovery also. When i check my data they recoverd whole data which one i dnot want to be recoverd. They have very efficient tools for recovery the hard drive. I advice you whenever you want format the hard drive firstly taken backup of your HDD.