windows formatting problem

Q

Queeg

New Member
Hello all,

I am installing windows on a previously used hard drive. This means that the hard does have data already on it, but from my experience windows will just reformat and wipe everything clean when you reinstall it. However it is only alowing me to format the previously non used portion of my disk. So somehow everything I had on there before is staying on there and I am not able to format over it.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Don't know if it's important but the disk I am installing to did not have windows on it. It was a secondary drive.
 
First of all Windows will only format a new primary once it detects it when creating it with the disk tools seen in XP and now Vista or after using a 3rd party program like Partition Magic or the free Linux tool GParted.

XP will install right onto Fat16 and Fat32 type partitions as well as on NTFS 5.0 types. Any existing copy of Windows even a previous copy of XP is simply replaced when the installer deletes the folders for the first. The quesion now is the type of partition currently on the drive like a Linux VFat or Apple/Mac type incompatible to MS Windows.

If the existing partition is not an MS type then you will need a 3rd party drive like one of those mentioned earlier. Wiping the drive is simply a matter of deletion of the current one to make the entire drive available. Once that is done a new NTFS primary can be created by the disk tools seen when running the XP installer if you have not already created the new one with the drive tool used. XP will then format it at the time Windows is installed.
 
If the drive's jumper was set to the slave postition and is now at the end of the ide data cable you would move that to master or in some prebuilt systems left at cable select or simply remove the jumper as many see. But you also mentioned a portion of the drive where XP would install to suggesting either drive space left unallocated or having a second partition on the drive originally.

The smart move would be to first backup anything left on the existing partition before seeing that removed completely. A new fresh primary would the drive's jumper then set correctly would see a good clean install of Windows go on.

From findings here however the XP installer tends to miss a very small amount of drive space when using that to partition a drive during installation. But it's a quick method for the less experienced while the live for cd version of GParted will fully detect the 1-8mb of drive space XP misses.
 
Sorry, I'm having a little trouble understanding what you're saying. I'm not very computer saavy :P. Anyways, the disk was never partitioned before. I'm trying to install windows on this single partition drive. I have backed up everything I need, I just want to format the whole drive and have a single partition of the entire hard drive's capacity.

Cod jumper setting affect windows not letting me format over the old data on the disk?
 
The first thing is looking at the rear of the drive after seeing if it is plugged into the end or middle connector. The second of couse is verifying that the jumper IF an ide not sata type drive is the intended drive. Serial ATA drives see a data cable of their own while ide drives are on a cable with a second hard drive or optical(cd or dvd) type drive. Position on a two drive cable will usually determine the jumper setting on each drive.

The next question of couse would be the version of Window or OS to be installed. That will determine the partition type while XP can also be installed on a Fat16/32 partition Vista requires an NTFS 5.0 type which is present already.

For reformatting with XP you need to slave the drive in another system to use the Disk Management tool and right click to choose the format option. XP lacks what is now seen on the Vista installation dvd namely the option to format an existing NTFS 5.0 partition with the improvement in drive tools seen there.
 
if its a pata drive then make sure the jumper on the back is set to master also unplug any other hdds you have in the pc untill windows is installed.
 
If you have a sata and want to see Windows installed there the Windows installer will still place boot files like the boot.ini file for XP and the ntldr files on the first ide drive while the Windows and other folders are created on the sata drive selected. That was certainly tested out lately when XP was reinstalled on the first of two sata drives while Vista is on the single ide drive. Ide overrides sata needing a boot from the Vista install disk later to use the repair startup problems automatic repair tool now seen with Vista inplace of the recovery console.

My goof! :eek: I seemed to had forgotten to unplug the ide drive or simply testing that out when the opportunity presented itself. :P
 
garrrgh I still cannot get windows setup to recognize the whole drive. I have set the jumper on the hard drive to master, and I have the hard disk plugged into the end of the ide cable.

Windows still will not allow me to make a partition the size of the entire drive.

Please halp.
 
One trick I have used before is, try installing this as a slave drive in a different computer that already has windows. Boot to windows, right click on the drive and select format. Let it format.

Now take it out and put it in the system you want to install windows on. Install windows normally.
 
Queeg said:
However it is only alowing me to format the previously non used portion of my disk. So somehow everything I had on there before is staying on there and I am not able to format over it.
Click to expand...

Are you saying the drive had a partition and some unused space or 2 partitions. If so you need to delete the one partition and create a new one using the whole drives space, if it has 2 partitions you need to delete both and create 1 with the whole drive space. If you just use the partition thats on it and its not the whole drive space thats where windows will install on it.
 
The drive has a previously used primary on it needing that removed in order to see a totally fresh single primary then created for a clean install of Windows. This is why the references for partitioning and formatting it were posted earlier.
 
When you get into the XP setup, delete the partitions on the drive. Then, create a new one and format it.

To do this, highlight the partition (C drive presumably) that you want to delete, press D, then Enter, then L.

You will be returned to the main screen. Tell Windows to install in the unpartitioned space and it will partition it, format and install.
 
One bug besides being the easy way to see that done with the XP installer is the lack of hardware/drive space detection where the installer tends to leave a small amount of drive space unallocated. People wondered why the Disk Management tool was seeing some 1-8mb of unallocated space following and even proceeding the single primary at times.

The live for cd version of GParted can easily see that corrected since the MS drive tool is intended more for ease rather then accuracy. At Vista saw some improvement in that direction while GParted is preferred here. Vista also sees the separate option to format a partition separately without going through the entire installation as one extra option.

While many that have used Linux over the years consider it outdated the drive tools seem to still be ahead of MS there while still based on the old UNIX type platform.
 
I never partitioned the drive. It consists of a single partition the entire size of the drive. If it helps, I installed this drive into a currently running windows machine. All I did was basically plug and play and take the necessary steps that windows instructs you to do to get the drive running properly.


I did try to delete the partition through the windows installer, but it only displays one partition, the amount of disk space that is not currently used on the disk. It does not display the rest of the drive. Therefore, somehow only a part of the drive is being formatted.
 
That is due to trying to install onto the existing primary. Was the drive originally run in a prebuilt system like an HP, CompaQ, Dell, Gateway, or another brand? Or was this first used new in a custom build case?

Drives removed from preassembled machines will have a hidden recovery partition stored for system restoration if the version of Windows or other OS doesn't do so well and needs to be reinstalled. Some security measures put inplace by some companies will hamper attempts at making changes to existing partitions where the drive has to be wiped clean of anything first to later be made usable in a custom machine.

One other thing to remember is that Windows itself along with any preinstalled softwares will take up drive space. Another concern is the rounded off figures on drive sizes when first going to create a new primary on a brand new drive. A 500gb sata here will see 465gb as the total while a boot floppy to a dos type prompt and change to the drive wth only a few basic dos files will show some 500,002,102,784 "bytes" not giga bytes.
 
I custom built my computer and added this drive as a secondary drive for file storage. my primary pretty much crapped out, I used bartPe, got everything off of both drives that I needed, then proceeded to use my good drive( the one I've been talking about) for my main windows drive.

It is a 250gig maxtor. Windows is only alloting me about 131 gigs for formatting, which is the size of the unused portion of the disk.

I'm thinking I might just go buy a 40 gig drive, put windows on that, and then format my 250gig through disk management in windows.
 
What you seem to need there is a tool that will remove the existing primary since you may have inadvertently created too small of a partition rather then the full drive space available. A good tool in fact excellent tool for seeing that cleared up and see the full use of the entire amount of drive space available is GParted live for cd or otherwise known as the Gnome Partition Editor.

Once you have used that tool a few times to see how things work you will find it even easier then thought to create, delete resize, and even move partitions around. Another tool for wiping a drive totally while not free is called Active Killdisk that will repeatedly write binary zeros to the drive totally wiping it clean. That would still seem to be overkill to some extent there however.

With something previenting the Windows installer from deleting the current primary you have two options 1) being resize meaning expand then reformat the current one 2) get it off of the drive entirely for a totally fresh start which would be recommended. I also suggest downloading the Maxtor drive diagnostics tool to see if there are any defects with the drive you are now using like bad sectors preventing normal use of the drive.

Since Seagate now owns Maxtor you will have to go through their support site for the free drive testing tools they provide for Maxtor models. http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.j...toid=7add8b9c4a8ff010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD
 
PC eye said:
One bug besides being the easy way to see that done with the XP installer is the lack of hardware/drive space detection where the installer tends to leave a small amount of drive space unallocated. People wondered why the Disk Management tool was seeing some 1-8mb of unallocated space following and even proceeding the single primary at times.
Click to expand...

I,ve told you before the 8mbs it not a bug/flaw/mistake what ever you want to call it. It there by design, its for converting drives to a dynamic volume.
 
Do you have XP SP2? SP1 would only allow about 140GB, SP2 fixed that problem.

And StrangleHold is right, the 8MB is there by design.
 
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