reformat old drive in USB enclosure? [solved]

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bevross · #1 Post by **bevross** » Sat Oct 23, 2004 6:30 pm

Hello: Well, I broke down and got the Hitachi 7k20 drive and it's up and running with everything reinstalled & updated. Also got a nifty external USB enclosure but, I'm back to the problem of how to get rid of the hidden FAT partition so I can have one 40gig hard drive for backups, etc. Windows XP/sp2 doesn't allow any actions on the partition using the Disk Management console. I'm exploring the DOS/diskpart command but haven't seen how to do this here yet. Anyone know the steps to do this or whether it can only be done by buying some software? I'd appreciate advice.

Thanks!

bevross · #2 Post by **bevross** » Sat Oct 23, 2004 9:36 pm

Solved this, it was almost too easy and, potentially, very dangerous. I used the XP/'DOS' command diskpart, the "clean" option. Danger comes in making sure that you pick the right disk to clean! "Cleaned" all partitions, volumes, and data in a few seconds! Then, go to the XP disk management console and you'll get the wizard to partition & format.

w0qj · #3 Post by **w0qj** » Sun Oct 24, 2004 1:18 am

what is the exact command(s) on how to "clean" hard drive?

skanky · #4 Post by **skanky** » Sun Oct 24, 2004 2:56 am

^^ you have to go into 2K/XP's recovery console then type "diskpart" --have a look on google there shouldbe a fair few guides about it.

bevross · #5 Post by **bevross** » Sun Oct 24, 2004 7:55 am

w0qj wrote:what is the exact command(s) on how to "clean" hard drive?

In XP, go to the DOS prompt (e.g., type "cmd" in the "Run" line).
Type "diskpart"

This will enter you into a little area where you can type more commands, with a prompt:

DISKPART>
type "?" will give you a list of all commands.

here's a sequence of commands to select the right disk (assuming you have the USB drive connected, it will be "disk 1" , the C: drive is "disk 0") --

DISKPART>select disk 1
DISKPART>detail disk

(here you verify that you are at the selected disk)

and here is where you type "clean"!!

I assume no responsibility if you wipe out the wrong hard drive inadvertently!

sktn77a · #6 Post by **sktn77a** » Sun Oct 24, 2004 8:54 am

Couldn't you just have used the standard FDISK to delete all partitions?

bevross · #7 Post by **bevross** » Sun Oct 24, 2004 3:37 pm

sktn77a wrote:Couldn't you just have used the standard FDISK to delete all partitions?

FDISK isn't in XP; DISKPART took its place. [do you really have 3 thinkpads?!]

sktn77a · #8 Post by **sktn77a** » Mon Dec 27, 2004 10:40 pm

Actually, I have 4 - the three T4x computers are my kids' and I have a T30 from work.

w0qj · #9 Post by **w0qj** » Wed Jan 12, 2005 1:21 am

can the "DISKPART" command re-format your hard drive from NTFS back to the old FAT32?

i have a 40 GB portable USB HDD that my T42 formatted into NTFS, and i have no way to get it back to FAT32 (my old Win'98se machine don't see hard drives more than 32 GB).

bevross · #10 Post by **bevross** » Wed Jan 12, 2005 1:04 pm

DISKPART is just for partitioning. FAT32 partition size is limited to 32GB so you'd have to partition the 40G drive. Then just use format with the FAT32 option (/FS:FAT32).

mdarnton · #11 Post by **mdarnton** » Wed Jan 12, 2005 4:59 pm

I just did a little switching around of hard drives and needed one with FAT32, plus some other stuff, and since I was working with 3 drives, needing partitioning and formatting, I decided it was worth buying Partition Magic, just to get it all done. It worked like a charm.

reformat old drive in USB enclosure? [solved]

reformat old drive in USB enclosure? [solved]

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