Formating NTFS hardrive

[Kastuvas]

I am runing Win xp with an NTFS, now i have decided to give it a go with win 2000.

The problem is because it is NTFS win 98 boot up disk doesnt detact my hardrive, and i cant format it or install win2000 any suggestions how o overcome this problem?

[AmSci]

Re: Formating NTFS hardrive

Originally posted by Kastuvas
I am runing Win xp with an NTFS, now i have decided to give it a go with win 2000.

The problem is because it is NTFS win 98 boot up disk doesnt detact my hardrive, and i cant format it or install win2000 any suggestions how o overcome this problem?

Skip the win98 bootdisk...Just put the win2k cd in, and start the install procedure. The win2k installer will give you the option of partitioning your disk. The windows partitioner isn't very involved (you cant resize existing partitions), but its good enough to do what you need.

[Kastuvas]

What do you mean skip, don't even put it in the drive ?

I have to choose the CD-ROM letter somehow.

[Zao]

The Win2k CD is directly bootable, at least if you have the an non-warez one.

You do just enable CD-booting in BIOS, pop in the CD and boot it.

[Kastuvas]

Ok i will try that thank you

[GNEP]

Or take a look here: http://www.bink.nu/Bootcd/default.htm to slipstream SP3 into the install and create a single win2k boot disk with all your drivers etc on as well.

Very useful thing to do, although try and burn it to a RW as there are a few tricky parts (also a reg key that needs changing in older versions of Nero that is not mentioned here).

It has made reinstalls so so much easier for me - just 1 disk with win2k, SP3, .NET, drivers, utilities etc.

Gnep

[Kastuvas]

GNEP ok i have updated to SP3 version but i am a bit confused what to do with those boot files?

[Admiral]

If you don't manage to make the Win2k CD bootable you could boot with a Win 98 startup disk and start your PC with CD-Rom support, go on the CD in the i386 folder and run winnt.exe (or was it winnt32.exe ?) to start the setup.
If you manage to start it this way, make sure you run smartdrv before, or it will take it ages to copy the temporary setup files to hard drive.

[MultimediaMan]

FWIW, if you have a drive formatted NTFS with WinXP, it will not be recognized by Win2K's NTFS system.

WinXP's NTFS Filesystem is not backwards compatible with WinNT or Win2K, but both older versions of NTFS are forward compatible with XP.

If for some reason you must format to FAT32, you can use the Win9X Boot CD's FDISK to delete an NTFS partition and start anew.

There is another site that has a decent walkthrough on building a Slipstream Disk for Win2K and WinXP here.

Hope this helps...

[AmSci]

Originally posted by MultimediaMan
FWIW, if you have a drive formatted NTFS with WinXP, it will not be recognized by Win2K's NTFS system.

WinXP's NTFS Filesystem is not backwards compatible with WinNT or Win2K, but both older versions of NTFS are forward compatible with XP.

Thats not true. I duat boot win2k and winxp, and when I'm using win2k, I can see and use the other NTFS partitions I formatted in XP.

[GNEP]

Kastuvas - the instructions are reasonably good there. But have a look at the site that MultimediaMan suggested, and if still stuck come back here and let us know exactly where you are stuck

[Kastuvas]

Thanks a lot guys i enabled cdrom booting and it was working win2000 detected my hardrive, but i had a date tonight so i left it till i come back

I only tried original CD without sp3, i will burn it in moment see what happens if it wont work then i will install sp3 after i install win2000.

[GNEP]

Awww... giving up installing win2k for a date? Who do you think you are

Well done/good luck all the same... on both

[Kastuvas]

Ok here's an update, installed Win 2000 last night it was 3 AM everything went to plan, and everythings is working smooth now (tuch wood).

Compared to xp, win 2000 runs much faster at least on my system, hehe i hope it was worth the downgrade, only took me all day but hey i learend something

Cheers again.

P.S GNEP hehe yeah right

Awww... giving up installing win2k for a date?

I'm not that a geek

[GNEP]

It was 3am: I take it the date didn't go that well

Well done all the same.

Gnep (also hailing from London )