PDA

View Full Version : Reformatting. Discs



Don Henthorn Smithville, TX
05-17-2003, 10:38 AM
OK. I have backed up my files and have the new XP waiting on my desk. Does it make any difference how I format the disc? That is, do I use FDISC or use the procedure given in Windows HELP? I can follow the instructions in Windows HELP, but I am uncertain of the procedure to get to FDISC. It hurts to be ignorant.

Bobby Hatfield
05-17-2003, 11:44 AM
Don, sure hope someone explains this to you in terms simple enough I can understand, my disc's from 98 didn't show up on XP the way I made them. Should I have formated disc before burning ? This new stuff is sure hard for us old geezers to learn. At least you know about FDISC, what's that ?

Don Henthorn Smithville, TX
05-17-2003, 11:56 AM
Originally posted by Bobby Hatfield
Don, sure hope someone explains this to you in terms simple enough I can understand, my disc's from 98 didn't show up on XP the way I made them. Should I have formated disc before burning ? This new stuff is sure hard for us old geezers to learn. At least you know about FDISC, what's that ?

Bobby, we are both confused. I was not talking about burning CD discs but about my hard drives. I messed up the terminology which of course messed you up. As far as I know you do have to format the CD disks before you burn them. I thought most CD programs wouldn't let you burn a disc unless it was formatted. But what do I know?
I've known about FDISC for a long time and at one time I even knew how to access it, but I am forgetting a lot now days. Probably further along in Alzheimers than I thought.

Ken Garlock
05-17-2003, 12:38 PM
Don, when you say you have backed up your disk, was that in anticipation of destroying the contents on the disk by doing a new installation and not an upgrade?

It has been along time since I did the W2K upgrade from NT, but I think(we're in trouble now) that you will have the option of redefining and formating the the disk during the XP installation process. Read through the installation manual looking for defining your disk file system. You definitely want to use NTFS type of file system, not FAT32.

Just go slowly, and have the manual at your finger tips as you go through the installation process. I think you will find the XP process to be much more user friendly than the Windows 9X releases were.

You can do it :) Ken

Don Henthorn Smithville, TX
05-17-2003, 3:33 PM
Originally posted by Ken Garlock
Don, when you say you have backed up your disk, was that in anticipation of destroying the contents on the disk by doing a new installation and not an upgrade?

Yes, and No. I have been told I should do a "clean install" which means to a newly formatted disk. However it is an upgrade

It has been along time since I did the W2K upgrade from NT, but I think(we're in trouble now) that you will have the option of redefining and formating the the disk during the XP installation process. Read through the installation manual looking for defining your disk file system. You definitely want to use NTFS type of file system, not FAT32.

I haven't opened the package yet. Will do that and see if I have an installation manual.

Just go slowly, and have the manual at your finger tips as you go through the installation process. I think you will find the XP process to be much more user friendly than the Windows 9X releases were.

You can do it :) Ken

John Miliunas
05-17-2003, 6:36 PM
Don, Ken is right that XP allows you to "fdisk" and format on the fly. You should be able to boot right to the XP installation CD. It will run through a check of your system, make sure you have enough room, etc.

A couple things to watch for, though. First, I remember you saying that you have two internal hard drives. I have yet to find an explanation for this phenomenon, (maybe the more learned can come to my rescue here.) but when you have two internal drives, the stupid operating system (XP) decides that the main system files should go on your *secondary* hard drive. In other words, you'll end up with the O/S being on "D" instead of "C". The only reliable solution we have found for this is to physically disconnect your secondary drive before proceeding with the installation. Once done, you can hook it back up and all is good with the world.

Another thing to watch for is, during the initial phase of installation, it will prompt you to see if you want to delete the partition. To do so, you will confirm it three times! (They want to be positive that's what you want to do.) This is the equivalent of "fdisk". The next process will allow you to "install" the operating system to the desired partition. You can, at this point, choose to create a partition or simply select the partition and it will create it for you. Depending on your hard drive and BIOS, the installation process may prompt you for your choice of partition tables (FAT or NTFS). If you have this choice, it will probably also give you the choice of "quick format". Go ahead and use that...It's much, MUCH quicker. With XP, it matters little if you choose FAT(32) or NTFS. Either file system works well with it. When it used to be just FAT(16) OR NTFS then yeah, you would *want* NTFS, because of the way space is allocated on your drive(s). Because Win2K and XP can read/write to FAT32, it doesn't matter as much. The biggest advantage today with NTFS is in the business or production environment, where that particular file system gives you more control over file security and rights administration. Most home users don't have too much of that to worry about.

The rest of the installation is pretty straightforward. There are relatively few prompts as you go along and most anything you do or don't do at the point of installation can be adjusted afterward. Good luck with that and don't hesitate to give a yell (personal email or otherwise) if you have more questions. :cool:

Andrew Field
05-17-2003, 9:48 PM
Don, most of what has been said above is correct, but let me add a little....

First, it doesn't matter how you format your disk. During the Install of XP you can do a format which is the same as fdisk, I recommend doing it this way.

I have never seen the problem that John mentioned with the OS being installed on the wrong drive. During the setup it will ask you what partition you want the OS to be installed on.

You have two options for the file system on the drives you format... Fat32 and NTFS.

Unless you are planning on having a dual boot system (Both Win9x or WinME AND WinXP on the same machine) then you should choose NTFS. NTFS makes much better use of the disk space, adds file level security options, and adds operating system level file compression. The compression can really save you lots of space with out much of a performance impact. The difference between a quick format and a full format is that the full format will check and scan every section of the hard drive as where the quick format will only clear out the header (FAT) portion of the drive. I do a full format on a new drive or a drive I haven't used in a long time and a quick format on drives I know are in good shape.

I do XP installs all the time, so give me a yell if you have a question or need help.