Can't fdisk and reformat

[Pollux]

I'm completely reformatting and redoing my hard drive. it's a 20.4 gig IMB UATA66. I'm going to partition it into one 10 gig section (win2k), one 5 gig(win98), and another 5 gig(linux). however when i went to fdisk and reformat i deleted the first active partition upon which was win98 and went to delete the extended dos partition which was win2k. however it told me I cannot delete Extended DOS Partition while logical drives exist. However i went to delete logical partitions in the Extended DOS Partition and it tells me No Logical drives defined. what am i doing wrong here. can somebody help me get to the stage where i have a completely reformatted hard drive with the specifications mentioned above? thank you.
-pollux

[izzzy12k]

If Win2k works like NT4, you can boot to the Win2k CD (NT4 CD may work for you also) and use it's partitioning utility during setup to remove the partitiion and recreate it too. just exit the Win2k setup once your done.

izzzy12k

[Pollux]

I have a Win98 boot disk and all i'm trying to do is fdisk to get three different drives and then format all of those drives. I know that there has to be an easy way around this problem, just have to figure it out'
-pollux

[izzzy12k]

the linux and Win2K partitions will not possible to remove with win98's FDISK. Try running the Win2K setup and see if it lets you configure (create or delete) the partitions during setup like Win NT does then exit setup when your done.

izzzy12k

[Pollux]

Alright... question. I've gone through and you're right, there is no way to delet the partition that i made with the win2k. there is also no way to partition with the win2k boot disk. does partition magic run from dos? because of right now i have no os on the box. and no idea as to how to get rid of the other partition. thanks
-pollux

[Nixona]

Can you boot from a win98 boot disk and format the individual partitions? like
format c: /s
then d: and e: if there is one? Wont this format it to Fat32 and give it the system files? I thought I did that with an NT4 box...

[Pollux]

I can boot to a:\ with a win98 boot disk. however when i do fdisk it tells me that there's a primary c:\ partition which i can delete, but also an extended dos partition which i can't delete. this extended dos partition also does not have a laber (c:\,d:\) and seems to be undeletable. hmmmm
-pollux

[Dave_H]

You may want to read this thread, this was for NT 4 but sounds like the same problem. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/Forum9/HTML/000433.html
credit goes to alpha for following up on this for other members with the same problem.
Dave

[Pollux]

Dave_H, that's a great reference thank you!
i'm gonna try the BCWipe thing that was suggested in that thread and i'll let you'all know how it turns out
thanks
-pollux

[Dave_H]

Glad it helped.
Like I said, credit alpha, et all
all I did was point. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif
Dave

[BBA]

Izzy and Pol, you are missing the option to delete the 'non-dos' partition.

FDISK will in fact delete any partition on any drive (other than a MAC OS drive)

You can also use any app to write all zero's to the drives boot record...as stated earlier.

[This message has been edited by BBA (edited 01-19-2000).]

[Pollux]

BBA,
indeed i did try to use the delete non-dos partitions, however this still didn't work because it was an extended dos partition that i couldn't delete. In the end this problem was solved by inserting the Win2k cd and running setup until it let me delete all partitions, then exiting setup. thanks to all who helped!
-pollux

[izzzy12k]

Glad I could help! http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif

Good luck with your system! http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

izzzy12k

[JimG]

Suggestion: Get Partition Magic. It's a great utility that will help you reformat and create partitions for different operating systems. Let me know if you're interested in getting a copy.

[Vernon Frazee]

How to KILL a stubborn hard drive partition
http://www.gate.net/~vfrazee/kill_hd.htm

[alpha]

A two words; Norton Diskedit.
I think that if you start it in DOS, you can write zeros onto the drive and I THINK that if you delete the 55 AA at the end of a partition, you can re FDISK. You can also find your Win Product code.

[Pollux]

Alright SocalGal, i have a feeling that as more people start putting Win2K Professional on their Abit Bp-6's there are going to be quite a few questions. Here's how i successfully did it.

Download the BP6LP121.BIN BIOS update from www.bp6.com (http://www.bp6.com) as well as the HPT drivers V1.20. Flash your bios with that update and when it brings you to the HPT366 screen hold down CTRL+H to set your Hard Drive to UDMA 4. Begin loading Win2k. When it says "Press F6 to load additional..." press F6 and put in the disk with the HPT366 drivers. You should then be golden to have Win2K on your system.

However, if you mess up a couple times like I did and had already formatted your hard drive or part of it with Win2K you'll see that you cannot delete or reformat these partitions with your Win98 fdisk. What you'll need to do is restart the Win2K setup, press F6 when it asks you to, follow setup until it lets you choose what partition you want to put it on. There will also be an option to format a partition as well as delete a partition. That should solve your problem.