Formatting Hard Drive

[snyderd]

I am trying to format a hard drive but keeping getting the message "Can not format a network drive.. I have fromatted hard drives several times on other computers, but this time?? I have tried changing jumpers on hard drive.. The hard drive is a Caviar 22000. Is there something I need to do before attempting to format?
Someone Please Help

[mc2phat]

Did you remember to create the primary DOS partition, and make it active? I'm not being condescending, I did the same thing a couple years ago. Big "DUH" on my part.

HTH
-phfat

[snyderd]

I did not partition because I dont know how? I simply put a format disk I have in the floppy and turn the computer on. Select "Format" and thats the way I have done it in the past. I did try using the FORMAT command and the
FORMAT C:/s command, but got the same thing..

[mc2phat]

http://support.microsoft.com/support.../Q255/8/67.ASP

[Floppyman]

Hello,

You need to partition your harddrive in order to format. Use your bootdisk and at the A: prompt type fdisk. Now you need to decide how many partitions you want to have. I will try to explain the procedure for single and multiple partitions.

Single partition.

All you need to do is create a primary partition and use the entire space of the drive. Then once you're back at the main menu there's another option (not sure what number) that will help you make your partition active. Once you've done that, exit, and reboot and then format.

Notice: If you want linux on this drive, don't use the entire space of the drive for the partition. Whatever you leave unpartitioned can be used by linux.

Multiple partition.

The procedure is almost identical but has a couple extra steps. Once again, create a primary partition, but don't use all the space of the drive. (Ex: only use 2 gig of a 10 gig drive). Next go back to the main menu after creating the primary partition and set it active. Then go back to the menu and create an extended DOS partition. Use the rest of the drive for this. Now here's where it gets a little tricky. There's an option that lets you create what are called logical dos drives (or more partitions) inside the extended partition. Example

10 gig hdd

Primary partition: 2 gig

2 gig - drive c:

Extended Dos partition: 8 gig

logical dos drives created within extented partition:

2 gig - drive D:
6 gig - drive E:

If you want to create just one logical DOS drive use the entire leftover space, it will would be for example Drive D:. If you want to create multiple logical DOS drives within the extented partition, you woudn't use the entire space. For example: The first logical DOS drive you create is 2 gig, then the next one (you can create many) you create is 6 gig, which would fill your 8 gig extented partition as shown in the example. Had you not used all the leftover space for the second partition you could go creating a 3rd and 4th and so on, until you've used all the space available. It's really up to you how many partitions you want to create.

Once you've created those logical DOS drives, and you've set your primary partition active, you can exit and reboot and format each partition. Ex: format c:, format d:...and so on. Notice though that only the primary partition needs to be made active.

Notice: If you want to install linux on this drive, don't use all the leftover space for the extented partition. You can still create partitions inside the extented DOS partition even if you don't use all the space. Linux will be able to use the unpartitioned space for its file system.


Hope this helps, and let me know if you have more questions.

[mc2phat]

http://www.pcmech.com/build.htm