Post dual boot removal - format system disk - Help!!

[Philth]

Hi

After a failed repair of XP (startup going straight into setup process and then crashing 3/4 way through), I made a new install of XP on my D: drive. This left me with a dual boot (XP on both C: and D.

I edited the boot.ini file to just use my D: installation - worked no probs, but now I am unable to format my c: drive. Reason given is that it is a system disk - but there's nothing on it anymore - I deleted all the files (including hidden)!!

Tried booting from a DOS disk, but format commands not recognised.

Anyone with any ideas out there guys??

Thanks in advance!

[simbill]

fdisk it in dos withj a windows98 bootdisk. go to www.bootdisk.com and get a win98 bootdisk. once booted to it get to a command prompt type "fdisk" without the quotes and follow the instructions. once inside the 1 2 3 4 5 menu, you want to delete your old partition named C:, and then make a new one and reboot. for help with fdisk check out http://www.computerhope.com/fdiskhlp.htm

[Philth]

Thanks - I'll give it a try tonight!

[Philth]

One uestion though - why a Win98 bootdisk when Im using XP? Does the XP disk not load all of the DOS commands or something?

[tigraengi]

There are such a thing as a win xp boot disk? I got the impression that all windows xp cd's including illegally copied ones booted. There may be boot disks to detect the CD ... i dunno, I may just not be thinking straight .. anywho I dont think they have fdisk if there are such things.

[Philth]

Update:

AAAARRRGGHHHH!!!! Created a Win98 bootdisk and ran FDisk.... and completely buggered it up even more!! Ended up with no primary dos partition, and then even when I recreated it, no boot file could be found, so could only boot from floppy or cd.

Ended up reinstalling XP onto my C drive - so back to dual boot!! But once again, the copy of XP on my C: is stuck in Setup (same prob of crashing 3/4 way through).

Anyway, will remove the option for the dual boot and wait another 6 months when I'll redo the whole bloody PC!!

Thanks anyway guys!!!

[simbill]

im afraid you don't know what your doing :-\

[Play_The_0dds]

just a question, is the C and D drive on the same physical disk or two different hard drives?

[Philth]

They are on the same physical drive - why?

[Philth]

Originally posted by simbill
im afraid you don't know what your doing :-\

lol - what gives you that idea!?!?!?!?