I'm screwed, so i need your help!

Sometimes I work on my old computer which has two hdds. The primary has like a 12.6 GB and on the screen it's saying it has about 9MB left :| :| :|

The other thing is on this computer, the cd rom doesn't read ANYTHING. NOTHING! NADA! ZILCH! So is there a way I can reformat without buying another cd-rom drive?

 

ddp, I've never tried this with XP but I know that we used to always just load ME or 98 cab files on the HD and go from there. If he moves one of his HD's to another PC, and copy entire XP cd onto it, will it work the same as the old days?

If he just wants to format or fdisk he could also just use a startup floppy but what then after that's done and you want to load Windows again?

 

Great, Thanks

Interesting to know if it still works like the old days.

 

Scuba Bud I hate to inform you it does not work in XP.The disk has to be bootable into the setup program. To install. However all the CAB files are stored in the install under the directory I386. FDISK has also gone south for XP. The SYS Command is also gone.IT gets better though. You Cant move a HD from one computer to another and expect it to boot if the IDE controllers are different. XP would die. So no more master disks to bypass install on multiple computers. Unless they all have the same IDE controller. OH yeah FDISK will not see a NTFS partition.

Quadratic I do not understand your post. The first part makes sense but please explain the second part.

PADI Divemaster (only 36 hours down)
-Del

 

Mr_Del

Thanks for you input on that. I have never tried it before as was just curious.

But for what you say about can't move one HD loaded with Windows XP to another PC is not correct. Otherwise I guess that this PC I’m using now and the one I have on my test bench are freaks of nature when it comes to XP. You see all I did was take one HD from a system and placed it into another completely new PC setup including changing from an Intel board to this Asus with a different processor, from a P2.8 to this P3.4. Had problems with Video drivers only and also had to load new MB drivers of course. I also had to call our favorite persons place of business, Microsoft, to change out the keys since one was an OEM that I moved to another build. After a couple of minutes they gave me the new code to type in and here we are. I am typing from one as we speak. Did I misunderstand what you were saying about this?

 

As far as the moving the hd over. I know it can be done if you do a repair install on the new system but that does not always work. So it is eaiser to say what I did. I never thought of trying that way ddp. I can see how that would work. The main piece of hardware is the IDE controller. Thats what messes up xp in a MB switch.

Even though you switched between venders there is a chance they both had the same IDE controller. Just depends how they built that bord.

 

i agree with DDP, i have done that many times when i GHOST....and i have never had any problems at all....Do what DDP said.....and u should have no problems...

 

When i reformat my PC Windows XP Home, i never use a disk, i use a bott-disk, a Windows 98 one. Never have any problems with it.

1. Start PC with Disk in.
2. Select Without CD-Support (option).
3. When loaded type: format (DRIVE C,D etc.):

 

If your able to attach the older HD to the newer computer with IDE secondary to what the HD drive is on - set the older HD as a slave. Boot the computer. Go to Control Panel, next Administrative Tools, then Computer Management, then Storage - Disk Management. You should be able to see the drive, then reformat the drive. Keep the drive Fat32 for the older computer to see it when you add the Operating System.
If the CD-Rom is not reading, install the drive in the P4, still nothing. Re-cycle it. I had to re-cycle a Samsung from the wifes old 466 Celron. Running XP Home with no problem; except for it does not USB 250 Zip Disk external (USB Powered version).

Rich

 

A quick short time fix might be to move the swap file to your 2nd hard disk. Usually it defaults to creating pagefile.sys on your C: drive but you can move it to another. Depending on your memory size, that might free up as much as a gig since the swap takes up about 1.5x your physical memory. Go to Control Panel/System/Advanced Tab and click on Settings under Performance. Go to the Advanced Tab there and find Virtual Memory. Click the Change button and tell it to use your 2nd drive. I did that on a PC that was getting the C: drive filled up and then uninstalled and reinstalled a few apps onto the D: drive and was able to free up plenty of space without having to reinstall.

 

Mr.Del, I asked if there was anyway I could reformat without a cd-rom drive

 

Quadratic I think there is a way with XP. Unless you already solved your problem go here http://search.microsoft.com/search/results.aspx?st=b&na=88&View=en-us&qu=xp+boot+disk . You will need 6 floppy disks to make windows xp boot disks. They will boot you into XP setup and I think you can go so far to format the drive Fat 32 or NTFS. Without a CD-rom though you will not be able to install XP.

I have not ever tried to use these disks to format but it should work since Formating is a setup function. Give it a try. Oh yea Select the correct set of disks. It is 1 EXE file that will make the disks for you. You will see what a mean when you look at the site.

Good luck
-Del