How to format?

Heya guys.. haven't been here for a while :>

Well, I've never really knew how to format and I decided its the right time to ask since I have to format my hard drive again..

I have a 20 gigs hard drive divided to 2 partitions, (c: - fat 32, d: - NTFS).
I want to format my hard drive and create 1 partition only (c
but I'm a bit confused of what should I do...
Should I use the fdisk commands to create the partition and then format it? or should I first format both of the partitions and then create the partition?
Another problem I have is that I don't know the commands ;\
I'd really appreciate if someone could advice me what to do (I want one fat 32 partition) and add the commands I should write by order.

Cheers.

PS: do I gain any advantages by shredding the hard drive? or format is enough, if so how do i shred it?

Check out the following MSKB article...

How to Use the Fdisk Tool and the Format Tool to Partition or Repartition a Hard Disk

Another option is to visit the website of your Hard Disks manufacturer, and see if they have any disk maintenance software.

I have 2 Seagate drives, and use Seagate's Diskkeeper software, which provides an easy to use graphical interface for partition management and setup.........

Thanks redduc900 I checked the article and its very useful, the only problem is that I'm running win2k on my system ;\
I've also found a similar article about winXP but no win2k :<
RedDeathDrinker - I hope I'll be able to find one since my hard drive Isn't new (3~ years old) cheers anyway

There is that program though partition magic smth.. I heard you can format/shred etc. using it.. you have to load it to a floppy or something? and again, does shredding my hard drive gives me any advantages?

Cheers

hrm.. I'm sorry if I bug you guys but I really need to know how to do this.. :<
And think, that by answering me you won't have to answer again since a quick search will find this thread
again, I need to format my hard drive and install windows 2k on it (I'm also running win2k at the moment)
any article/guide/program/answer would be welcomed :>

Cheers

Since you plan on installing W2K on a FAT32 volume, the MSKB article I linked you to above has all the necessary steps for you to take afa partitioning and formatting your HDD. The reason W2K isn't listed as a supported OS in that article is because NTFS is the preferred filesystem for W2K, not FAT or FAT32 (both of which are pretty much antiquated filesystems anyway, unless of course you're running an earlier OS like Win95/98/Me). I would definitely suggest formatting your drive using the NTFS filesystem...and if you decide to do so, the partitioning/formatting of the volume can be done during the Setup portion of the install (instead of having to use the Fdisk and Format tools from a command prompt).

Takiwa has written up an excellent guide on re-formatting/re-partitioning, which can be found in the Storage section of the forums. I would suggest reading through the entire thread...

A guide to re-partitioning, re-formatting, and re-installing

do I gain any advantages by shredding the hard drive? or format is enough, if so how do i shred it?

Click to expand...

I'm not familiar with the term "shredding" when referring to a HDD...sorry.

Thanks for the help mate, the reason I chose fat32 is because I read few articles which claims fat32 work faster in hard drives smaller than 32 gigs and NTFS is better for 32 gigs and up.

hmm maybe I'm using the wrong term, but when i say shredding i mean to run a program which fill the hard drive with "0" in order to eliminate all written data

Cheers!

You only need to perform a high-level format (the same as running the Format.exe tool from the command prompt), which in essence is the process of writing the file system structures on the disk (which includes the master boot record and file allocation tables). Writing zero's to the disk is called a "zero-fill", or as some would call it...a low level format (which isn't the correct terminology, since this is done by the manufacturer of the HDD). A high-level format will wipe the drive of all data...the only time that you should ever really need to do a zero-fill is when the manufacturer suggests it, in conjunction with their diagnostics utility.