XP Reformat Procedure

[Alaron]

I had Windows98 First Edition on my PC, and I recently upgraded to WinXP Professional. I wanted to reformat the drive to wipe it clean, but it just installed XP Pro on top of 98, and all of my files were still there. I am having an issue with my BIOS not allowing me to defrag my 40gig drive. It stopped Scandisk at 32gb. I upgraded the BIOS but I still couldnt get past the 32gig limit. I am hoping that Reformatting and doing a clean install of XP will eliminate this problem.

I have already backed up my important files, so I wanted to ask what steps I should take to properly wipe the drive, format it and reinstall XP. I didnt see any option to format it when I installed, so is there a way I could use a utility on a floppy to wipe the drive, so then I can install XP on a clean drive? After I wipe it, what steps do I take?

I want to get past this defrag problem that Ive had for a long time. I just want to have a nice smooth system.

PS. The system is only a year old. The board is an Epox 8KHA+ with the VIA266A chipset. The drive is an IBM 40gig 60GXP drive. I dont know why the BIOS is limiting the hard drive when its so new.

TIA

[reboot]

Set the BIOS boot order to CD first, put in the XP CD, restart the computer. Format when prompted.

[Alaron]

Thanks for the help reboot. I was able to wipe the drive, format it with NTFS, and do a clean install of Windows XP. I still noticed that it isnt recognizing anything above 32GB. When it was reformatting, it was "Formatting Drive C: 32239MB" when the drive is really 40gigs. I am out of ideas on this recognition problem. I dont feel that I should be forced to by a Controller card when my BIOS is less then a year old. I am going to contact Epox, but does anyone have any other ideas? TIA

[KHT]

My advise would be to boot to your Wndows 98 setup disk. If you don`t have one download it here. http://www.bootdisk.com/

When you get to the screen that asks what you want to do, (install windows, etc), press shift+F5. At the A: prompt type fdisk and use the utility to delete whatever partitions there are on the drive and then create a primary DOS partition. ( the options are fairly straight forward what to do, you will have to delete any logical drives before deleting partitions....fdisk will scold you if you try otherwise)

Once you`ve created a primary partition and dset it active, remove the floppy and insert your XP Pro Cd and restart the computer. If your BIOS supports booting to a CD,XP installation will start and detect the partition.

Follow the prompts to install to that partition and do yourself a favor and format it as NTFS.

This will give you a clean install.

[crjdriver]

Some drives use a jumper to limit the size of the drive so as to be usable on older mb. This is done to preclude using a drive overlay program.
Check and see if you are using a jumper to limit the size of the drive. When you run xp setup it should see what partition[s] are on the drive and offer to delete / create then format for you.

[reboot]

If the BIOS isn't limiting the hard drive size to 32 gig, then it's got to be the jumpers on the drive itself.
Are you sure that the BIOS recognizes the drive correctly? It may need to be manually set to LBA, and nothing else.

[Alfie]

The drive may be partitioned,in control panel-administrative tools-computer management-storage,click on storage and see what it reports,is the drive partitioned?
If it reports drive c,drive d,it is and you can format the second partition from there.
As stated check the jumpers on the drive.

[Alaron]

Thanks for the replies all.
reboot, the BIOS is recognizing the hard drive correctly. It reports that LBA is enabled.

Alfie, I checked in the Control Panel and it shows that drive C is "Capacity 31.4GB". There are no partitions reported.

I looked at the back of my hard drive, at the jumper diagrams. There is a setting labled "32gig clip". But the drive is not jumpered that way. The drive is jumpered to Cable Select. My other choices are "16heads", "Slave", "Dev 0", "Forcing Dev 1 Present", and "Auto Spin Disable". There are multiple settings to use as Master, Cable Select and Slave but it is jumpered for CS. The drive is on a single device cable.

Is it possible that the settings are labled wrong? The option for "32gig clip" is moving one of the jumpers one pin set over from where it is now.

Any ideas? TIA

[reboot]

Take the jumper off, and see what it reports. You can always put it back on.

[Alaron]

I removed the jumpers and booted the system. During the bootup I saw that it reported the drive as "LBA ATA100 41176MB", so I suppose the BIOS is recognizing the entire drive. I went into the Control Panel and under Computer Management, it shows Drive C with capacity 31.4GB as the Primary Partition. Then it shows 6.86GB as "Unallocated". How should I get XP to recognize the extra 7gigs? Should I set the jumpers differently? TIA

[crjdriver]

It is being recognized. You will need to create a partition in the unallocated space; then format the partition. This can be done in disk management or you can use a third party program such as Partition Magic. If you want to merge the unallocated space into one drive, then I think you will need PM.

[reboot]

It's recognized, just not allocated. Fdisk should have picked this up, but for whatever reason it didn't.
Now that you have removed the jumper, you could try and fdisk again, to see if it's fully recognized. If not, you can use XP to get it.
Open Administrative tools, Computer management, disk management, and right click on the unallocated portion in the right hand panel. It will then allow a format, so you can use it.
If you wish to merge the two partitions into one, you will need something like Partition Magic.

[Alaron]

Thanks reboot. Once the jumper is off I reformatted and did a clean install. Windows now recognizes the entire drive. It shows 38.3gigs rather then the old 31.4. Can I leave the hard drive jumperless? Is there any problem with that?

[crjdriver]

As long as you have just one physical hd I see no problem with leaving the jumper off. If you install a second hd then you will need to set jumpers.
This is a good example of why you use xp / 2k setup to partition / format and not fdisk. Fdisk has limitations that xp setup does not.

[reboot]

If it works, don't fix it. Obviously the jumper was the limiter, even if it was mislabeled.
crjdriver may not be right though. If you use CS on any other device, and put it in the slave position (grey plug) on an 80 wire cable, then the drive should still function properly. IBM drives CS setting is jumperless (at least mine is). Only need a jumper if setting master or slave, which only applies if using another drive on the same cable.

[Alaron]

Thanks for the information and the help reboot. Everything is running smoothly now.