Formatting

jolynyk · Post by **jolynyk** » 27 Feb 2005 4:55 pm

I had 2 drives in my old computer C: drive 100gigs with windows XP
& D: drive 200 gigs with windows 98.. This 200 gig drive was only formatted to 131 gigs, because it said that's all the old bios could handle.. I put in a new motherboard with a 3.2 CPU. For some reason this 200 gig D drive renamed itself to F drive...I would like to now format F drive to the full 200 gigs of usable space, & maybe partition it to 2 or 3 partitions, for storage as an extension of C drive.. Can someone tell me how to do this properly.. I hate to try to do it without guidance for fear of wiping out C drive accidentally.. Would I have to do a clean format of F drive so as to gain the full 200 gigs.. Thanks... John

Don Poland · Post by **Don Poland** » 27 Feb 2005 8:35 pm

try this: http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/bootitng.html

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1974 MSA D10 7+4

jolynyk · Post by **jolynyk** » 28 Feb 2005 1:11 pm

Thanks Don.. Apparently there are several ways to go, NTFS, Fat, & FAT 32.. what is the difference.. I think I have been using NTFS.. Is Fat 32 better? I have heard it mentioned quite a bit... Thanks. John

Mark Ardito · Post by **Mark Ardito** » 28 Feb 2005 1:29 pm

Stick with NTFS. Forget about FAT.

Windows XP was really meant to be run on a NTFS file system.

Mark

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Sho~Bud Pro I, Fender D-8 (C6&E13) http://www.darkmagneto.com
http://www.arditotech.com

Bill Miller · Post by **Bill Miller** » 28 Feb 2005 2:02 pm

The safest way to format one drive in a multiple hard drive system is to disconnect the main hard drive altogther. That way you are absolutely certain not to accidentaly lose or corrupt anything while you're fiddling around preparing a slave drive. I always just disconnect the primary hard drive and then temporarily set the jumpers on the secondary drive to the 'master' position. After that I use the 'FDISK' utility contained on a Win98 startup diskette to partition and format the new drive. Before doing anything to a new drive you should download files from the drive manufacturer to make a utility diskette. You might want it later for diagnostics or 'low level' formatting. Assuming you've backed up anything you might want to save on the new hard drive (since you've already been using it) you can use FDISK to delete the current partitions and start over. If the existing partitions can not be deleted ( I've seen it happen) then you might have to use your utility diskette to 'low-level' format the drive before you can make new partitions. Actually this isn't a true 'low level format' but it's referred to as such by drive makers. After you've partitioned and then formatted the new drive remember to set the jumpers back to the 'slave' position and then reconnect your primary drive. Remove the Win98 startup disk and reboot the PC. Your operating system will find the new drive and you should be ready to go. [This message was edited by Bill Miller on 28 February 2005 at 02:51 PM.]

jolynyk · Post by **jolynyk** » 28 Feb 2005 8:39 pm

Thanks all.. good advice to disconnect my C drive.. I've got some stuff on there I'd hate to lose... I will attempt the format.. John

Dave Potter · Post by **Dave Potter** » 3 Mar 2005 4:52 am

<< D: drive 200 gigs with windows 98.. This 200 gig drive was only formatted to 131 gigs, because it said that's all the old bios could handle... For some reason this 200 gig D drive renamed itself to F drive...I would like to now format F drive to the full 200 gigs of usable space, & maybe partition it to 2 or 3 partitions,.... Can someone tell me how to do this properly..

Go to Control Panel/Administrative Tools/Computer Management. Click on Disk Management. You'll see a graphic depiction of your system storage devices.

*Right*-click on any drive and you'll get a drop-down menu which includes the option to change the drive letter of that drive.

There's also an option to format the drive in that drop-down, and that's the way I'd do it.

I can't recall if, when one selects "format", there are any partitioning options offered. I've always used PowerQuest Partition Magic for those sorts of things.

The prior suggestion to use NTFS file system would be my suggestion as well - NTFS is a more robust file management system than any of the FAT systems.

I've never heard of an instance where a different drive was damaged or corrupted in any way during these kinds of actions on a separate drive. Windows handles this stuff very well with no need to unplug anything. Don't worry - it'll be fine, but 200 gigs takes a long time to format/check/defrag...etc.[This message was edited by Dave Potter on 03 March 2005 at 04:54 AM.]

jolynyk · Post by **jolynyk** » 3 Mar 2005 5:39 am

Thanks Dave.. As it stands now.. My drives have given thenselves the letters as follows.
100 gig--------C drive
200 gig--------F drive
CD-RW----------D drive
DVD-R----------E drive
If I allocate the 200 gig to be D drive, will the CD-RW automatically become F drive, or would I have to go in & change that manually the same way??
The 200 gig shows that it is 127gigs.. If I click on Format will it format it to the full 200 gigs, or will it format it to the existing 127 gigs.. I would like to get the full 200.... Thanks..... John

Bill Miller · Post by **Bill Miller** » 3 Mar 2005 9:18 am

I'm assuming that the 200GB drive is the newer one right? I'm wondering why you have Win98 on it? Running multi-operating systems is certainly feasible but I'm not sure why anyone would want to. You own WinXP and it is a far superior OS.
Unless you already have an awful lot of stuff you want to keep on the 200GB drive why not just back up what's necessary on the other drive or to CDs and then use a utility disk (download file to a diskette from the maufacturer) to low level format the 200GB drive. ( ...or whatever the particular manufacturer calls the procedure to write all zeros to the entire disk surface)That basically restores the disk to the way it came from the factory. That might be the only way to get the full 200GB capacity back. Then, as I mentioned previously, you'll need to partition and then format using 'FDISK'.

Dave Potter · Post by **Dave Potter** » 3 Mar 2005 1:42 pm

<< If I allocate the 200 gig to be D drive, will the CD-RW automatically become F drive, or would I have to go in & change that manually the same way??

You can use that method to change to any currently *unused* drive designation. If you want to rename an existing drive to a drive letter that's in use, first, rename the other one to anything you want, something well outside the range of letters you're working with, like P: or L:, whatever. Reboot each time you make one of these changes to let the OS catch up with what you're doing.

After you've freed up the drive letter you want to use, rename whichever drive you want to use it with. Keep doing that till all your drives are named what you want them to be, rebooting after each change. That gives Windows time to change all the references to that drive letter in the registry.

<< The 200 gig shows that it is 127gigs.. If I click on Format will it format it to the full 200 gigs, or will it format it to the existing 127 gigs.. I would like to get the full 200....

I would expect a "full format" (as opposed to a "quick format") to do the whole 200 gb. As I mentioned in my previous post, I've been using PartitionMagic for this stuff, and I don't recall how much partitioning you'll be able to do natively in WinXP. My sense is, not very much, which is why I went to a 3rd party solution for that.[This message was edited by Dave Potter on 03 March 2005 at 02:10 PM.]

jolynyk · Post by **jolynyk** » 4 Mar 2005 5:15 am

Bill let me explain.. I had a dual boot, thinking that if one crashed for any reason, I'd still have a computer, & that proved to be the case many times.. I don't have Win 98 at present.. I used to have a 60 gig with Win XP on it & the 100 gig was Win 98.. I got a good deal Thanksgiving day on a 200 gig, so I formatted the 100 gig into Win XP.. Then I figured I'd quit the dual boot, so I formatted my new 200 gig with XP Pro also.. after I finished formatting I noticed I only ended up with 127 gig of usable space.. said something that the System I had (Pentium 3, 667 CPU) was too small (Bios), & could only format 127 gig.. so I bought a new motherboard, a 3.2 CPU, 1 gig ram, & now I'd like to reformat the 200 gig into a 200 gig, & use it as an extension of my C drive for storage.. I'm hoping to start making more use of my BIAB, & Sonar.. that's the reasoning for more storage..There is nothing on the 200 gig that I need to save as it was just formatted to XP Pro not too long ago..
Dave, A friend said he has Partition Magic, & he will come next week, & partition it..

Question....
Will partition Magic also Full Format this drive??

Dave Potter · Post by **Dave Potter** » 6 Mar 2005 1:52 pm

<< Will partition Magic also Full Format this drive?

Yes, it will. It'll do about any kind of disc operation you'd want, including changing the cluster size, which you might want to consider doing while you have access to the software. WinXP won't do it.

With a fast CPU and lots of data to transfer, it's useful to use larger data clusters for faster throughput. I'm also using a 3.2Ghz P4, and I have my largest drive, a 250Gig SATA drive, set for 64Kb clusters, and it's working well.

jolynyk · Post by **jolynyk** » 7 Mar 2005 6:13 am

Dave.. I bring up Partition Magic 8.0 & I right click on the hard drive that I want to Format.. It shows the drive as 131 size, If I click on Format in the drop down menu, will it format it to 131 gigs again, or will it go to the original 200?? that's the only place I can find the Format command.. Or is there somewhere else that I am missing?? The 64 cluster is only available in Fat 32??? or also in NTFS?? John

Dave Potter · Post by **Dave Potter** » 7 Mar 2005 3:14 pm

>> I bring up Partition Magic 8.0 & I right click on the hard drive that I want to Format.. It shows the drive as 131 size,

Yes, that sounds right - that's the size of *that* partition on the drive. What does the rest of the drive space look like in PartitionMagic? Is it partitioned, or is it free space, which is what I suspect? It's not real critical - once you format the drive, you'll be starting anew - the old partition(s) will be gone.

<< If I click on Format in the drop down menu, will it format it to 131 gigs again, or will it go to the original 200?

I think you're mixing two concepts. "Format" applies to the entire drive, and if you format it, you will format all of it.

After it's formatted, then is when you partition it, and you have choices. You can choose to make one partition and use all the space on the formated drive, or you can make more than one partition on the formatted drive, each with its own drive letter. I've always used just one partition - having to keep track of others never interested me. I can segregate data with folders, I don't need separate drive letters for that.

If, later, you decide to add, delete, or change the size of your partition(s), you can do that with Partition Magic, even if you have data on the drive. It can be time consuming with a large drive, but it's do-able.

>> that's the only place I can find the Format command.. Or is there somewhere else that I am missing?

No, that's the one.

<< The 64 cluster is only available in Fat 32??? or also in NTFS??

NTFS also. I recommend NTFS over FAT or FAT32. Much more robust and reliable.

jolynyk · Post by **jolynyk** » 7 Mar 2005 4:31 pm

OK got it... One mor ?.... Do I click on format first, then do the Clusters, do I do the cluster during format, or after I format it, then do the cluster? thanks... John

Dave Potter · Post by **Dave Potter** » 7 Mar 2005 4:57 pm

Format the drive first, then check to make sure your partition(s) are sized as you want them. Then, when that's done, use the "Resize Clusters" command to set the cluster size for the partition you're working with.

There's no free lunch; the trade-off for the added performance you get with larger clusters is a greater amount of wasted space on the drive. When you select "Resize Clusters", you'll see a table that shows how much space on the drive will be wasted for each size of cluster.

If you want maximum data speed and decide to go with 64K clusters, there will be a few hundred Mb of space wasted on the drive, but, in my view, on a 200Gb drive, a few hundred Mb wasted is a reasonable price to pay for the added throughput. I need best performance because I do stuff like digital video capture and other multimedia things, which require high rates of data transfer, so I accept the price.

If your threshold of pain can't stand the wasted space number, use whatever cluster size you like. In any event, it's something you can change in the future without penalty, if you so desire, assuming you have access to Partition Magic.

Ain't this stuff fun? Good luck.

jolynyk · Post by **jolynyk** » 7 Mar 2005 5:22 pm

OK I did the Format, didn't take long, then I right clicked on F drive, & it shows the drive as empty, but it still only has 127 gigs free space, so it didn't format it to 200 gigs..
John

winston · Post by **winston** » 8 Mar 2005 6:10 am

My take on this is you will have to make 2 partitions and then you will have 3 drives.

jolynyk · Post by **jolynyk** » 8 Mar 2005 7:34 am

Thanks Winston, but I'm just wondering if the 200 gig drive will give me 2 100 gig partitions, or 2 65 gig partitions... I'm hoping to recover the 70 gigs on the 200 gig drive., John

jolynyk · Post by **jolynyk** » 8 Mar 2005 5:23 pm

OK thanks to all, I put in my Partition magic & got the option to resize the drive.
John....