Re: re- formatting a drive in xp

From: R. C. White (RCWhite_at_msn.com)
Date: 04/29/04 

Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2004 16:49:04 -0500

Hi, Jake.

In WinXP, we use Disk Management to do almost everything that we used to do
with FDISK and Format.exe. Disk Management will create partitions, delete
them, assign drive letters, and format them.

We use Disk Management for all EXCEPT the System Partition (almost always
Drive C:) and the Boot Volume (also often Drive C:). Even in Win9x/ME and
in MS-DOS, we can't format the drive that holds the OS that is currently
running. So, in MS-DOS, to run FDISK and to Format C: we had to boot from a
floppy (Drive A:). Even then, though, we couldn't format NTFS from MS-DOS.

In WinXP, we boot from the WinXP CD-ROM if we need to repartition or format
either the System Partition or the Boot Volume. Any other drives can be
handled from Disk Management.

RC 

-- 
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
rc@corridor.net
Microsoft Windows MVP
"Jake" <anonymous@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message 
news:O87ibzhLEHA.624@TK2MSFTNGP11.phx.gbl...
> Does anyone know how to reformat a hard drive through windows xp?  On my 
> old
> 98se machine if I wanted to reformat a drive I simply restarted in dos and
> typed for example -- "format c:".   But as we all know you cant restart in
> Dos in Xp because it doesnt run on top of Dos.   I know that when I 
> install
> Xp it formats the drive for me but I was wondering if there was anyway I
> could do it my self using the format command in a sort of dos environment.
>
> Thanks
>
> Jake

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