Reformatting?!?!?

After the drive is formatted are you planning to install another operating system or reinstall 2000? If you are planning to reinstall 2000 review the instructions carefully found at http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000544.htm

With XP things are identical where you boot the system with the installation cd in order to delete the current partition. The installer will then ask if you want to create a new partition for Windows to go on.
 
just in case you didn't know, reformatting is deleting everything on your HD... that said...

insert the Win CD at start up and it will either automatically boot from the CD or it will ask you to press and key to boot from the CD. If neither of those happen, you will have to go into the BIOS and change the booting priority.

Reformatting is a piece-o-cake :cool:
 
Actually "zero filling" is the method of totally wiping a drive clean where nothing can be recovered later. Active KillDisk and other similar tools write binary zeros to a drive until the disk is completed. With 2000, XP, and Windows Server versions of Windows the drive tools needed are included in the installer itself to delete as well as create new partitions in order to install Windows on any hard drive. The installer will also format the new partition as part of the installation process.
 
I dont think fdisk will do him anygood if he wants a totally new hdd for a newer system. Especially if this is his only pc and his only hdd he cant use that becuase it will not work very well. First off just tell us if you want to use xp or if you are staying with 2000 and it will be a lot easier to give you the next steps involved man.
 
I think what codeman0013 is trying to get across is the question of why you want to format the drive in your system. Are you having problems with Windows, are you planning an upgrade to XP now that Microsoft has dropped support for 2000, or you wiping personal data off to sell hardware?

All that of course is your own personal concern there. But we can only provide advice based on what the information you give us. If you need with this and on reinstalling an operating system back on the system that is the type of questions to ask here.
 
How large is the drive itself? If you have an old 98 or ME startup floppy you can simply use fdisk on that to delete the current partition or partitions and later to create a brand new single primary. But you would be limited to 4gb unless you already have the last updated version good for upto 55gb.

Options anyone? Fortunately Linux offers the Gnome Partition Editor that will not only delete the current partition(s) but a create any size partition upto the capacity of the drive itself. You would select the NTFS type when using that where fdisk would only create a Fat32 type to be converted later. The 2000 installer would then format the new partition during the installation. Some basics on using fdisk for an installation of 2000 on small drives is seen at http://www.dewassoc.com/support/win2000/partwin2000.htm

GParted is the one tool that will delete and create even custom size partitions for both Fat32 and NTFS alike as well as for Linux. For some it would take a little to get used to but is an effective partitioning tool that is one thing others like Partition Magic are not. "Free"! You wiill need a cd writer to burn it to a cd-r however. http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/gparted/gparted-livecd-0.3.1-1.iso?download
 
If you plan on saving anything off of the drive that is still on it you will need to either slave it to another drive to temporarily store files there or back up what you are able to on removable media like cd-rrw or dvd-r/rw formats. With GPart you can decide whether to create a single primary for everything or create a second for storage.
 
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