[okeee]

How can you format a partition without using disk management and without installing win xp on it?

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dban

[dsenette]

dban

[SRX660]

You can also use a win 98 boot floppy to fdisk and format a drive. It formats as FAT32. If you need to you can download a XP boot floppy exe file that will make a 6 floppy disk set to format a drive as NTFS.

http://support.micro...b;en-us;Q310994

SRX660

[okeee]

Will this format a hard disk or only a partition? I need to format a partition only.

[SRX660]

Both the win 98 boot disk and the set of XP boot disks will show you that you have either more than one partition or a partition and unpartitioned space on a HD. You can reformat the second partition to destroy data on it and also partition a unpartitioned space with either one. Do searches on google on the subject to find out how.

SRX660

[fnark]

I believe you can also get to fdisk with Windows XP CD, but im not 100% so correct me if im wrong, and as SRx says theres loads of pages on tinternet about formatting partitions, the one i used when i did it was very helpful, here

[LouiseMorris]

yep windows xp does hav a partition program.. got it during install.. but not sure how to get it from cd

[okeee]

I would like to format a partition, but not install win xp on it. So can I use Partition Magic to only format that partition?

[WinCrazy]

When formatting by any means only a single partition can be formatted at a time. Formatting can only be done to partitions on a drive, not the drive itself.

You will be able to format a non-OS partition in XP by using the disk management utility (Start > Run > diskmgmt.msc).

[okeee]

How can you format a partition without using disk management? other methods?

[warriorscot]

Dban.

[WinCrazy]

Formatting can be done by an XP installation disc without actually having to install or reinstall XP. It can create, remove and format partitions. Partition Magic will allow partition creation and resizing from within Windows and allows formatting. A sequence of operations are set up while running the app in Windows then the system is rebooted and the changes are applied to the drive.

Also, utilities such as Partition Commander can be booted off of its CD and allow partition creation, resizing and formatting of NTFS and FAT32 partitions.