Starting over

[ZoomZoom71]

OK, I've gotten to the point I need to rebuild my hard drive. 6 years ago, I thought a 5GB partition would be sufficient, but in the past 2 years, I've constantly needed to keep the C drive clean, as I'm running out of space. The entire disk is 40GB, which means I have roughly 35GB on D drive. I'm trying to get this machine to boot to DOS, even trying to use an MS-DOS boot disk, but it isn't letting me. Any ideas how I can get there? After that, should I be using fdisk to change up the partition sizes? I'm considering just going back to a single partition, since I also have a 2nd HDD, that's 160GB. Any help is appreciated.

I used to know this stuff, but I think my brain is dumping some infrequently used stuff.

[dmiller68]

I assume it is an XP machine formated NTFS. If so a DOS boot disk well be of no use. You will need to use a Linux boot disk, I think if you search on NTFS and Linux you should be able to find one.

[ZoomZoom71]

Actually this drive was formatted with FAT32. My 2nd drive is NTFS, though. But, yes, I'm running WinXP Pro w/ SP2.

[dmiller68]

It may be the same issue if DOS can't get to all drives. You could unplug your big drive and try it again.

[ZoomZoom71]

I haven't tried this yet, but does the Windows Setup have a partition manager in it? I can't remember.

[dmiller68]

No, it has a partision creater/deleter. If you want to move or combie partisions you will need a 3rd party tool.

[ZoomZoom71]

Seriously, if I can simply delete it, which I'm guessing would leave me with one partition of the full 40GB, I'm OK with that.

[Swasagon]

you could use Partition Magic, thats what i use to manage my partitions

[grife]

do a google search for boot disks you can find freeware that will boot any partition and usually have fdisk/format capabilties

[ZoomZoom71]

OK, I decided to use the Windows XP disk to remove the partitions on the drive, then just go with one partition. I'm not sure I ever needed to have a 2nd partition anyway, especially having a 2nd drive. Oh well, now the task of getting all my drivers and other programs loaded. I'm already having a problem installing my print drivers. Wish me luck, fellas!

Thanks for your assistance!

[Peench]

Good luck!

[lovekeiiy]

If haven't had done it in awhile, I would just format the HDD and reinstall everything. I find I have do it about every year or two. Thank the internet for all that crappy ad/spyware that makes Windows more unstable than it already is.