Format HD without a CD?

[lchyi]

You know what I just realized? I have never formatted my HD except using my Windows XP CD. Well I just got a Raptor so I want Windows on that, so I installed it. Of course now it reads that I have two operating systems. I recall my friend telling me that you need a floppy to reformat... is there any other way? I'm just planning on reformatting my old 80gb HD and then putting XP on the Raptor. Thanks for your help, feelin' n00bish today.

 

[spyder500]

DOS baby!

go into C:/ Prompt

IE your new HD is Drive Letter = D:/

Now your in C:/ Prompt
type:

format d:

Then it asks you questions if your sure you want to format "Yes"
Then when it's done formating it asks you to enter a volume name.

Tada, learn how to use DOS. It's the best OS ever made =)
LOL... old school style for the noobs.

 

[spyder500]

ahh forgot to say
if you didn't already partion it

you need to do

fdisk.exe (do it in dos)

before you format your new HD (in dos)

 

[Macro2]

Aren't you assuming he has the format command on his computer?

 

[DSE]

How was the raptor installed, did you just hook it up, boot to XP CD, then install? Did setup detect the boot info on your 80GB while you were doing that? Depending on if the boot files for WinXP on your raptor drive is actually on your old 80GB or not, you may have to reinstall XP on the raptor after you format your 80GB. If the raptor has a clean install, and you can boot to the raptor when the 80GB is not connected, then do that, go into disk management, find your 80GB, then format it from there.


...or, if you haven't installed XP on the raptor yet, then boot to the XP CD, when you get the list of partitions detected, delete the partition on the 80GB. Then just install to the Raptor. When it's done installing OS, then go into disk management and format your 80GB from there.

 

[vaporize]

i reformatted my computer 2 weeks ago after a 3 year period. all i did was restart to msdos mode, go to a: drive and put in my floppy disk that had a file called format.com; this is what i did: "a:\format.com c:", it took 20 mins to format, then i booted with winnxp pro to reinstall.

i think your computer already has "format.com" file. just search for it and paste it into a floppy.

 

[corkyg]

Amazing! I was formatting HDDs when they first came out in the mid-80s. No Windows yet - no CDs either. Jts floppies and FDISK.

 

[GtPrOjEcTX]

You have XP? Go to all programs, administrator tools, Computer Management, disk management and format it from there.

if you don't have administrator tools, enable it in the customize start menu.