Format whole hard drive?

N

note235

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
May 23, 2005
Messages
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Okay so i am locked out of my OS
How would i format the whole disc to be able to reinstall a new one?
cant seem to install XP

like fdisk or something
except i dont have a floppy
 
How are you locked out? Forgot your p/w?

Just go into safe mode (F8) when booting up, log into your administrator account.

cmd > net user note235 note235 /add
net localgroup administrators note235 /add

Reboot and you should be able to access all your files and programs from the new admin account. There are other ways of doing this, this is just how I do it.
 
ahh
excellent
but its actually Windows Vista, a "trial" copy but i want to reinstall my xp.
Its on my laptop.

that info there is amazingly useful though
 
Oh I see. Trial ended so it locked you out.

Just set your dvd drive to boot first, pop in WinXP, and go into the installation.

Delete the partition, format it, and install.

Good to go.
 
here is the other problem
the xp does not detect a hard drive on the system though everything loads up to the Vista screen until it says, expired
 
Make sure your hard drives aren't in a RAID.

You could possibly also need your motherboards sata drivers slipped into your xp cd or use a floppy and press F6 to install them./
 
note235 said:
yes

but the XP cd does not detect a HD on the laptop
Click to expand...

what laptop do you have? Most likely XP doesn't recognize your SATA controller. You'll need to either make a floppy disk with the SATA drivers for XP on it, or create a slip-streamed XP disc with the drivers embedded into it.
 
I suppose XP couldn't pick up the SATA drivers.

*Correct me if I'm wrong* I heard some where that Vista does something to the drive turning it invisible to anything else (to say, reformat).

IF XP can't find the SATA drive then we'll need the model number to help and you'll need a flash drive (unless the lappy has a floppy drive (doubt)).
 
okay

its an HP
dv2109nr

thanks

yeah i think VISTA did something

and i do have a flash drive
 
Yes I've heard Vista will fuck with your drive so you can't reinstall XP (I really don't think it's true but I have heard stories)

What I would do is completely wipe the drive of EVERYTHING before trying to install XP again.

DBAN (Derik's Boot and Nuke) Can wipe it completely assuming you can boot from a CD/DVD drive, which I assume you can since you said you could get to the XP installation. It'll boot, completely wipe it of all traces of Vista so you should be able to reinstall XP
 
If you go to the drive makers web site you should be able to download a free utility to wipe the drive repartition it. To my way of thinking (which could be wrong ;) ) if the drive shows up in the BIOS windows (XP) should be able to see it during the install. It may not be able to handle the partitions format but shouldn't it be able to see the drive? It's looking for the hardware right?
 
alphanumeric said:
If you go to the drive makers web site you should be able to download a free utility to wipe the drive repartition it. To my way of thinking (which could be wrong ;) ) if the drive shows up in the BIOS windows (XP) should be able to see it during the install. It may not be able to handle the partitions format but shouldn't it be able to see the drive? It's looking for the hardware right?
Click to expand...

Well DBAN does the same thing as most of those utilities, but I find it does it better, much, much more thorough. You could have it wipe and overwrite it as many times as you want to get rid of everything. Once or twice is sufficient though

Edit: But regardless of how you do it, it seems the only way to fix it is to reformat it somehow
 
It's quite simple. Vista has, at a minimum, generic AHCI drivers built-in so that most SATA controllers will be seen. XP does not have any AHCI drivers since the lastest incarnation of XP, Service Pack 2, was release a bit before SATA drives became mainstream enough that it'd be a problem not to have them. The only way XP can see a SATA controller is if it's emulating an IDE controller, or the drivers for that controller have been slipstreamed into the installation media. Otherwise, you'll have to get a floppy with them on it and press F6 when XP's installer tells you to.

Just because BIOS, which is programmed to the specific chipset and devices on the motherboard, see the hard drive on a SATA controller doesn't mean XP will. It sn't programmed for your motherboard's specifics until after it does a hardware scan and happens to have an included driver for those that it finds, which isn't many for today's devices.
 
Private_Ops said:
*Correct me if I'm wrong* I heard some where that Vista does something to the drive turning it invisible to anything else (to say, reformat).
Click to expand...
You're wrong. I mean, maybe you did hear that -- but it isn't true.
 
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