Formatting Advice Windows XP

D

dlh

Geek Trainee
Hello
I wonder if someone could help me. I need to format my hard drive and usually use fdisk from floppy disk. I then insert the windows xp disc and load windows on. Can someone tell me why people use fdisk to format the hard drive when it appears that you can format the hard drive using the windows installation cd. It has never been explained to me properly. Someone has said that it leaves traces of the old windows installation on the hard drive if you format using the windows disk or even leaves the old installation on there. Appreciate any feedback. Thanks

dlh
 
well fdisk removes the selected partition unlike "format" removes access to the existing data, the data isn't actually gone with format it is hidden from normal view by setting the amount of free space to the full capacity of the HDD / partition
 
Wow, I have no idea. I didn't know people prefer fdisk either... hm.

I am looking at this article:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/255867
and apparently fdisk can only format with either FAT16 or FAT32 format. Which means you will have to use the XP CD to format into NTFS. Personally, I had the impression that fdisk is just an older method, before XP came out, and that using the XP CD entirely replaces the need to use fdisk. Perhaps people just stick with it out of habit & familiarity?
 
DRman said:
I am looking at this article:
How to Use the Fdisk Tool and the Format Tool to Partition or Repartition a Hard Disk
and apparently fdisk can only format with either FAT16 or FAT32 format. Which means you will have to use the XP CD to format into NTFS. Personally, I had the impression that fdisk is just an older method, before XP came out, and that using the XP CD entirely replaces the need to use fdisk. Perhaps people just stick with it out of habit & familiarity?
Click to expand...
:beer: cheers DRman, i actually forgot about fdisk not supporting NTFS & FAT16 limited to 2GB max & FAT32 is limited to 2TB, so to use the much more secure filesystem (NTFS) use the XP CD, i probably forgot because i don't use any FAT or NTFS
 
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