2024-11-03

hard drive format

Format a hard drive without using FDisk

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM05 mins

Format A Hard Drive STEP ONE
You first need to decide what operating system you intend to load after formatting the hard drive. It is best and easiest to use a boot disk for that Operating System, such as MS Dos6.2 or Windows95b or Windows98SE. You will need the proper Windows95/98 boot disk in order to load the these operating systems on the computer, else it will reject loading due to the wrong Operating System on the computer.

STEP TWO
Insert your boot disk in the floppy drive and start the computer. Once the system has completed booting and an A: prompt appears we are ready to start.

Type: format C: /s [press Enter]

This statement tells the system to format your “C” drive and when it is finished to copy the system files to the drive, (the /s switch for ‘System’). You can format a different drive this way by using a different drive letter.

Format should display: WARNING, ALL DATA ON
NON-REMOVABLE DISK DRIVE C: WILL BE LOST!
Proceed with Format (Y/N)? Type [Y] [Press ENTER]

Your screen should display the size of your drive and a countdown in percentage of formatting completed. Depending on your computer’s speed and the size of the drive it can take from a few minutes to over 15minutes.

STEP THREE
When it reaches 100% complete, you will see a new message:
FORMAT COMPLETE. SYSTEM TRANSFERRED.

This indicates that the files required to boot your computer from the hard drive have been copied from the floppy to the hard drive. The computer can now boot from the hard drive without a boot disk in the floppy drive.

You will see one last message:
Volume label (11 characters, ENTER for none)?
Type anything you like or leave it blank – [Press ENTER]

You can now begin to load your Operating System.
Special Note:
You may receive the error message:
“insufficient memory to load system files”

This is caused by the lack of a memory manager loaded at boot and your PC can only access the first 1mg of ram memory. There are two possible solutions:

1) Omit the /s switch when formatting. This is done by typing this:
FORMAT C: [press enter]

Then when the format is complete, manually add the system files to your hard drive by using this command:
SYS C: [press enter]

2) You will need to load a memory manager in order to overcome this issue. Not knowing what operating system boot disk you are using is an issue here. However, Windows98 boot disks load a memory manager, so let us assume it is either Windows95 or earlier.

You need to add the file HIMEM.SYS to your boot disk and then modify your Config.sys file on the boot disk.

Download Himem Here

and add this line in the Config.sys, (make this the first line):
DEVICE=himem.sys

Now, reboot your computer with the boot disk and it should work fine.

You will find that the boot disks we offer for download are all configured with a Memory manager and contain the file: HIMEM.SYS

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How to install, format, and partition internal PATA/SATA drive in Vista?

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM07 mins

How to install Internal hard drive installation instructions for Windows Vista using Vista installation process or Disk Management.

It is recommended you use Windows Vista to format and partition your hard disk drive when installing Vista on a boot drive or adding a drive as additional storage.

DiscWizard is your best choice if you want your new drive to become the new boot drive.  To do that, the operating system and the files on the old boot drive need to be copied to the new drive.

The following are step-by-step installation instructions on how to format and partition a drive in Windows Vista.

Fresh Vista Install:

  1. Physically install the hard drive in your computer. If this is a PATA / IDE drive, set the BIOS to Auto-Detect the hard disk. If this is a SATA drive, on some systems you may need to enable the SATA port in the BIOS before the computer recognizes the drive. For further information on navigating your system’s BIOS, please consult with your computer manufacturer’s documentation.
  2. Insert the Windows Vista CD-ROM and restart the computer.
  3. Follow on-screen prompts for setup. When installing Vista fresh on this hard drive, at the screen titled, “Which type of installation do you want?”, click Custom (advanced).
  4. At the “Where do you want to install Windows?” screen, select Disk 0 Unallocated Space and click Next.
  5. If this is a SATA drive and it is not recognized in the above step, you may need to install drivers provided by the motherboard manufacturer if the drive is connected directly to the motherboard, or install drivers provided by the controller card manufacturer if the drive is connected directly to a SATA PCI controller card. To install the driver for the SATA controller on the motherboard or PCI controller card, you will need to click Load Driver.
    Note: there are no Vista drivers provided by Seagate for any Seagate or Maxtor branded PATA or SATA drive, as the drives themselves are all Plug-and-Play within Windows Vista when connected internally on your computer.
  6. From here, proceed with the rest of the Vista installation.

Installing an Additional Data Drive in Windows Vista:
Note:If the second drive is pre-formatted or used in another Windows system, it is not necessary to re-format the drive. Follow the instructions below up to Step 2 and Vista should recognize the drive.

  1. Physically install the hard drive in your computer. If this is a PATA / IDE drive, set the BIOS to Auto-Detect the hard disk. If this is a SATA drive, on some systems you may need to enable the SATA port in the BIOS before the computer recognizes the drive. For further information on navigating your system’s BIOS, please consult with your computer manufacturer’s documentation.
  2. Restart the computer and boot into Windows Vista.
  3. Click on the Start button and select Control Panel. In the Control Panel, click on System and Maintenance. Scroll down and click on Administrative Tools. Double-click on Computer Management. On the left-hand side of the Computer Management window, click on Disk Management, located in the Storage section.
  4. In Disk Management you will see the active hard disks. Be patient, as it may take a minute or two for it to load the disk information. On the bottom half, you will see Disk 0, which is the Primary (or C:) drive. Disk 1 and greater are generally considered secondary storage drives.
  5. If the description of Disk 1 is “Not Initialized” then you must right-click on the Disk 1 icon and select Initialize.
  6. In the window that appears, click on the disk to be initialized and click on OK.
  7. Next, right-click on the Unallocated region of the basic disk, and select New Simple Volume.
  8. In the New Partition Wizard, click Next. Select the type of partition you want and follow all on-screen instructions.  After finishing, the section of the disk that said “Unallocated” should say “Formatting” for a few seconds.  Once it is finished formatting, it will say, “Healthy”.
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