Ok problems with win2k formatting... guru's please

[Jethro]

For some unknown reason Win ME is installed on this rig as a dual boot with Win2k Ok Win Me resides on a C: drive, which is also shared with E: holding Win2k, i.e both OS on the same physical hard drive.


Okay want to kill off Win ME and free the 10gig currently in chains to this evil OS. Within Admin Hard Disk manager can not get an option to delete the partition, or reformat the partition .....


Is there a way of killing off ME without resorting to a system rebuild, mission critical data on the box, which would take a huge amount of time to backup.......


Thanks in advance.......

[scoutt]

did you try partition magic? other than that without going into fdisk and doing it that way it will be pretty difficulty short of doing a clean fdisk of the whole system.

[jax]

Try creating a boot disk from ur WinME. Copy the fdisk program into that boot disk.

Then boot from that boot disk and delete the partition containing winME. Then recreate a new partition and set ur Win2k partition active.

Warning: U may encounter serious problems with this method.

[JungleMan]

OK try this...

I assume your Windows ME directory is C:\Windows\ or something...

Make a spare DOS boot disk, put it aside.

Try renaming it to some other name. Don't delete it just rename it. I know this seems funny but it'll all make sense at the end.

Boot up the computer. The boot manager should still be intact since it resides in the root folder of the C: drive. If the computer boots up fine and works fine, etc, delete the Windows ME folder that you previously renamed. If it doesn't boot up, go back into DOS and rename the folder back to "Windows".

ME won't technically be removed from the system but the boot manager will still be there on the C drive and you'll have most of the space free...

The reason why I said to rename is so we can test how the system acts if the folder doesn't exist, without actually deleting the folder.

Good luck .

[Jethro]

Thanks Justin and others will try it out later today......

[scoutt]

justin,that made no since. if you rename the windows directory it will not boot. the comand folder is under windows so all the files will be cut off. renaming the folder will do nothing. it will still not boot as it will be looking for that folder. just delete it and that partition and start over.

jax had theright idea. make teh win2000 partition active so you can boot from it.

if you don't set the other partition active you won't get anywhere.

[JungleMan]

Scoutt: In 2000/XP, the boot loader is stored in the root directory (It might be the MBR, actually) and not in the Windows folder. I don't know if ME is any different but if his boot loader is on his C drive and he selects Windows 2000 which would be on his D drive (or whatever) I don't see how deleting C:\windows would affect anything.

[siyan]

nah just reformat totally and use the w2k setup program to do your formatting.

-C

[jax]

I guess he do not want to clear away his win2k partition.

I thought of another thing. What he can do is delete every directories in c: (winme partition, including the windows directory.) DO not delete files in the c:\root directory.

Then edit the boot.ini file and change it such that the default boot is with win2k only.

This way, there is no need to set active partitions and other complicated stuff. U should be able to use the rest of the c: as your free space.

[scoutt]

justin, that is correct, that is if the win2000 even loaded a boot.ini file to C drive. but if that is the case then he could just load into win2000 and then from there partition the drive with ME on it. apparently that is not the case.

now when he boots up does he get a menu asking which OS to load? if not then winME is default which means that that partiton is active or he doesn't get a menu. the only way to get 2000 active is to make it active in the fdisk

[Jethro]

The boot is going into Win2k and then asking which OS to run.... apparently....

Tried using the win2k hard disk manager thingy, but doesn't offer an option for formatting C: and instituting NTFS .... have this horrid believe that a full rebuild might be required.


Need to load some IBM software called Redback, which wont run unless a database is stored on the C: drive ... Windows ME can't handle the db server..... (tried that one and thanks to IBM support desk for indicating this was the problem, could have indicated it in the getting started manual of course)...

[scoutt]

when you load into 2000, why cn't you jsut rigth click on c and then format?

[Jethro]

Doesn't give me the option ..... That was my initial thought as well ..... weirdness, maybe to do with being the C: drive or something....

[Beacon]

Hmm still having this prob jello!

ME is on c:
2k on d:

Correct??

[Jethro]

Single hard disk

ME on C:

2k on F:

am toying with Justin's approach, but kind of think a rebuild is going to have to happen

[Beacon]

Yes perhaps but arent boot files for both OS's put on the same partition which would be the ME partition???
If that happens to be the windows/system folder than it could be a bother.
Just remove or comment out the line that specifies ME in the boot.ini file.

Jethro you could just delete most files in the me partition but your system will need files like boot.ini which reside on the C partition. Fomatting the c drive would remove those files and no more OS's.

I'll have a think!

b

[Tygur]

I'm just confirming that there actually are files in the C drive that you need if you wish to continue booting Win2K.

AFAIK, it is possible to simply delete everything on the C drive manually except for the files in the root (in other words, leave c:\*.*). Then you can simply edit the boot.ini file so it doesn't even offer WinME as an option.

[Jethro]

stoopid windows....... have this horrible feeling things are going to get worse, have some new server software which demands install on C: and will only run under one of the NT versions......

[scoutt]

why couldn't you install win2k on C and have it reformat that partition and then once all the way up just copy stuff from D drive and then format D

[Beacon]

i spose coz he want5s the c: to take up all available space on the drive but he could adjust that once the space had been formatted!!
Good thinking 99.

[numtel]

I say format it all and install FreeDOS on a 2gb partition and leave the rest open.