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Main => Software Forum => Topic started by: SNAAKE on June 21, 2007, 04:38:59 am

Title: how to properly format hard drives in xp
Post by: SNAAKE on June 21, 2007, 04:38:59 am
sorry kinda off topic(non arcade) but can someone post some info on formatting the drive. I know I gotta do it through computer management but I am wondering about the settings and stuff. thanks in advance :cheers:
Title: Re: how to properly format hard drives in xp
Post by: headkaze on June 21, 2007, 05:25:34 am
What do you need to know? You just format it in NTFS, that's it.
Title: Re: how to properly format hard drives in xp
Post by: patrickmaher on June 21, 2007, 05:47:09 am
Maybe it's more of disk type and partitioning info that you are looking for?

You probably want to setup a basic disk and a single primary partition that is the full size of the drive. If you want to split it into more than one drive letter you should be able to figure that out from the partitioning wizard.

Check out this info on setting up a basic disk (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309000).
Title: Re: how to properly format hard drives in xp
Post by: Joystick Jerk on June 21, 2007, 06:15:09 am
Open explorer, right click drive, select Format, done.
Title: Re: how to properly format hard drives in xp
Post by: loadman on June 21, 2007, 07:34:18 am
sorry kinda off topic(non arcade) but can someone post some info on formatting the drive. I know I gotta do it through computer management but I am wondering about the settings and stuff. thanks in advance :cheers:

Yeah.. If its a brand new drive you need to mount/activate it in computer management or it won't show up in 'My computer'  From there you format it from there or from the My computer Icon

Pic attached

Title: Re: how to properly format hard drives in xp
Post by: Joystick Jerk on June 22, 2007, 06:49:29 am
Yeah.. If its a brand new drive you need to mount/activate it in computer management or it won't show up in 'My computer'

Since when? Any properly functioning computer running XP will automatically recognize a new drive and mount it.
Title: Re: how to properly format hard drives in xp
Post by: loadman on June 22, 2007, 07:40:07 am
Yeah.. If its a brand new drive you need to mount/activate it in computer management or it won't show up in 'My computer'

Since when? Any properly functioning computer running XP will automatically recognize a new drive and mount it.

Nothing to do with the computer.  ::) You obviously just have not been in the situation. Some new drives are pre-initilised for MS Windows and some aren't.  Same effect is achieved if you put your drive in after it has been used on another operating system like UNIX.

I think that windows auto mounts if it is the first drive but you may have to do it yourself on some drives if you put in additional
Title: Re: how to properly format hard drives in xp
Post by: headkaze on June 22, 2007, 08:24:11 am
Yeah.. If its a brand new drive you need to mount/activate it in computer management or it won't show up in 'My computer'

Since when? Any properly functioning computer running XP will automatically recognize a new drive and mount it.

Nothing to do with the computer.  ::) You obviously just have not been in the situation. Some new drives are pre-initilised for MS Windows and some aren't.  Same effect is achieved if you put your drive in after it has been used on another operating system like UNIX.

I think that windows auto mounts if it is the first drive but you may have to do it yourself on some drives if you put in additional

I know what your saying loadman it's happened to me a few times when one of my drives would disconnect (I think because of a lose cable) I would play with the plug and it would show up again but I would have to manually enable it in Disk Management for it to show up in My Computer.
Title: Re: how to properly format hard drives in xp
Post by: Joystick Jerk on June 23, 2007, 01:08:00 am
I think that windows auto mounts if it is the first drive but you may have to do it yourself on some drives if you put in additional

Nope.
Title: Re: how to properly format hard drives in xp
Post by: SNAAKE on June 23, 2007, 08:29:55 am
well..everything is working but I am curious about the difference between "basic" and "dynamic" disk type. I had a problem before(thread here) and my spare drives werent showing then I had to rewrite the partition again and they worked again. now I cleaned up my spare drive and trying to figure out how I should format it.
Title: Re: how to properly format hard drives in xp
Post by: Malenko on June 23, 2007, 09:06:11 am
you cant boot a dynamic drive, and you typically do that for RAID arrays
Title: Re: how to properly format hard drives in xp
Post by: NickG on June 23, 2007, 12:19:17 pm
Don't go dynamic or you may regret it later.
Anecdote:  My friend and I were trying to back up data from my computer onto his hard drive, which we connected to my computer to speed up the transfer.  The drive showed up, but the partition information seemed wrong.  Under disk management there were a few very small partitions of only a few megabytes which spanned the entire length of the bar graph, and they were marked as "foreign"