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Formatting C

Started by jim bob Aug 7, 2001 at 10:33 PM 9 replies 450+ views

Original Post

Aug 7, 2001 at 10:33 PM

Hello again. I have a ton of useless crap from tons of programs and downloads that are of no use to me anymore. The programs are not hard to get back. Anything that was super special was backed up. I think I know, but I thought it would be good to check first to be safe. I want to format my C drive. I would assume I would restart into DOS, and execute a FORMAT C: /U or whatever. Is something like that okay? Or should I format from Windows Explorer? Or something else? Also, is there any special files, besides personal wants, that I should or have to backup? After the format I want to reinstall Windows 2000, so losing Windows files doesn''t matter to me. Does doing this give me a "brand new" or "factory condition" hard drive again? Or would there be problems? I don''t want to do this and regret it, so help is appreciated. Thanks a lot everyone. I am not worthy of a sig!

Martee

126

Martee

Aug 7, 2001 at 10:46 PM

Yes, formatting from DOS is what you want to do.
Yes, it''ll give your computer a shiny new "out of the box" feel

.

As long as you have any important personal files backed up, you can go ahead and wipe the drive.

~~~~~~~~~~
Martee

jim bob

Author

jim bob

Aug 7, 2001 at 10:55 PM

Yes, thanks for the quick reply.

If the drive was wiped clean, every last byte restored, and I pop that Win2K disk in, it will reinstall Windows just fine, and everything will be all peachy and fine, right? I don''t want to ruin something and not be able to get back to the way it used to be, and regret it.

Also, from DOS, which command should I use, and what extentions to that command? I think I know, but again, I want to be sure.

Thanks again, and thanks for the reply.

I am not worthy of a sig!

terminate

Aug 7, 2001 at 11:00 PM

format c: with no extensions works fine as long as you can boot from win2k CD or disk with cd-rom drivers on it.

Martee

126

Martee

Aug 7, 2001 at 11:03 PM

Yep, ''format c:'' would do it ... but you don''t even need to format from DOS. You will have the opportunity to format your drives during the Windows 2000 install.

~~~~~~~~~~
Martee

jim bob

Author

jim bob

Aug 7, 2001 at 11:32 PM

Okay, this is an odd question. When I installed Linux, it partitoned my drive for mount points and such. Linux will be uninstalled and any partitions or whatever, removed, correct? Sorry, that''s kind of dumb but I wasn''t sure.

I am not worthy of a sig!

Martee

126

Martee

Aug 8, 2001 at 12:12 AM

Yes, that is correct. Windows will gladly remove any traces of Linux from your hard drive

~~~~~~~~~~
Martee

Epolevne

Aug 8, 2001 at 12:32 AM

You can boot off the Win2k CD before you format.

As part of the install, it allows you to Delete/Create Partitions and format a System partition.

Epolevne

jwalker

Aug 8, 2001 at 1:08 AM

format c: \s

that will put system files on the disk.
that will let you boot into the disk .

{ Stating the obvious never helped any situation !! }

omegasyphon

Aug 9, 2001 at 10:23 PM

wouldnt the faster optoin be back up important files
delet the partion then make a new one and format? it only takes like 2 minutes to wipe and make a new partition anyway

Tha_HoodRat

189

Tha_HoodRat

Aug 9, 2001 at 11:49 PM

Go to the dos prompt , run debug.exe and run the following code.
-f cs:00 1000 0
-w 0 2 ffef 11

then ctrl-alt-del. Youd have to fdisk or fips your drive after that tho

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