Format Help

[99shassan]

I purchased an old lap top (Dell cpi d266xt)from an old employer. It was loaded with windows 2000 professional. It has 64 mg RAM with a 267 processor. I upgraded to xp and now the machine wont move. I tried to format to reinstall windows 98 (I did not receive a copy of windows 2000 when the machine was purchased). I was unable to format due to the ntfs file system. When i tried to change that to a fat32 system it told me i did not have access. Likely being something built into the operating system from the company i bought it from. Is there any way to get around that to reformat?

[clocker]

Do you have administrator rights on your new pc?

[Mïcrösöül°V³]

go to gateway's website and download a program called GWSCAN.(just search on their site for it) it will write zeros to the hard drive and wipe all that shit off. you just boot with the disk in the drive, go to dos prompt, then type GWSCAN, youll see the menu there. theres prolly other proggies, but i happen to like this one. :) remember, this will wipe EVERYTHING off the hard drive, so youll need a windows disk to do a fresh install, which from what i gather, is what you want to do. here (http://support.gateway.com/support/drivers/search.asp?st=pn&param=7513666) is a link. :) it works on ANY hard drive.

[accat13]

i think you could also goto the hardrive manufacturers webside and download there software for hardrive install .. I just recently used seagate's software on a fugitsu hardrive (they seem to be the only manufacturer who will let you use there program on different hardware) ...you make a boot disc from there software and it will treat the drive like a new drive with options of partitions and ntfs or fat...good luck....."64 mg RAM with a 267 processor" with xp now thats funny

[UKMan]

Originally posted by 99shassan@2 December 2003 - 00:08
I purchased an old lap top (Dell cpi d266xt)from an old employer. It was loaded with windows 2000 professional. It has 64 mg RAM with a 267 processor. I upgraded to xp and now the machine wont move. I tried to format to reinstall windows 98 (I did not receive a copy of windows 2000 when the machine was purchased). I was unable to format due to the ntfs file system. When i tried to change that to a fat32 system it told me i did not have access. Likely being something built into the operating system from the company i bought it from. Is there any way to get around that to reformat?
Mïcrösöül°V³ is correct of course.

There is a much easier way if you have a windows98 boot disc handy too. It supports large HD's and you can use the fdisk + the format commands from the DOS prompt.

Just thought i would add this.

Peace
UKMan

[Evil Gemini]

Or you could boot up with the windows xp disk and delete the partitions and see if 98 formats the drive for ya.

Usually works for me.