Reformat A Hd Back To Ntfs

[jimras]

I have a HD that was used for Linux and Windows doesn't "see" it when I open Explorer. I was running a dual boot with XP on one drive and Linux on the other.

I would like to use the drive again with XP. How can I get Windows to see it so I can format it back to NTFS?

One thought that I had was unplug the drive with XP on it so that this Linux drive was the only one hooked up in the computer and then put the Windows XP CD in the CD drive and turn the computer on. Would this work?

I would welcome any help that you experts might be able to offer.

[murtu52]

well, you could find a partition manager, and then just reformat the second drive into NTFS or FAT32....If you have a windows 95 boot disk, they have the formatting software on it. For that actual syntax to reformat, i'm sure someone here knows it....

But, if you have some live linux CD such as knoppix lying around, usually they have partition software loaded onto it. Trying looking on the disks...

[mikex]

unplug the drive with XP, run a 98 bootdisk to fdisk and format. the put XP back inline as C:\ of course. Now you could use XP to format the drive to NTFS.

M$ KB on fdisk and format.

I would estimate about one hour until you get XP back in line.

Of course this is if you don't have a "Live" CD.

M

`EDIT

Killdisk is a very handy tool to "wipe" drives.

Edited June 4, 2005 by mikex

[tictoc5150]

Have you tried opening disk management?...The drive doesn't show in "my computer" but does show up there and you still have the option of deleting the partition and reformat as NTFS without the use of boot disks and partition managers

Since I only use linux, I don't have the exact path to open disk management but it's something like: r-click "my computer">manage>disk manager

(I hope that's it, anyway )

[martymas]

hi jimras

i can only type here how did mine i have two drives one had xp and the other had

ubuntu

what i did i unhooked the drive with xp .

then i inserted the xp disk.

and it gave me the option to format the partition

which i did. tho i used the spare drive as storage .

make sure you go to the bios and set it to autodetect

then boot from the cd.

not sure how you have your jumper set

i took my jumper out and made it the slave.

yes it will work if you unplug the drive with xp

but you need to set that spare drive in the bios

because i was a novice at doing this i got it by trial and error.

setting the bios is the secrete

marty

forgot to add as tictoc posted you need to go to disk management

to see if your drive is recognised

but that is for another post

so post back.

[jimras]

I actually went to the disk management program and found that it could see the drive so I deleted the partition and then I reformatted it to NTFS and now everything is fine.

Thanks for all the advise, everybody!!!

jr

[tictoc5150]

heh, thanks for coming back to say problem solved....especially when I was right

[martymas]

me to tictoc

i did the same as jimras but my drive had 4 partitions

from ubuntu i havent a clue why but i deleted those partitions

and the sys recognised my new drive .

it was a learning experience for me

as in the past some one had done it for me .

so im glad it was a success for jimras

and a lesson for us all

marty

[jimras]

I'm glad I could share my experience and have others benifit from it, too

I should have mentioned that I WAS running a dual boot and to get rid of that, I put the XP disc into the CD and booted from that and then ran the repair console. Then I did the (I think) FIXMBR program which re-writes the MBR on my C drive. Now XP boots up without the choice to start Linux.

Thanks again, everyone!!!

Jim