In a fit of idiocy I formated my c: drive so I could install Vista. I went back to XP for personal reasons so now I have a XP system with a c,d e and f logical drive on one physical drive, with the c drive being NTFS and the others Fat 32. I now want to wipe the c drive clean by a simple format. How can I do this. I cant do it from xp because it will be wiping the system drive while xp is running.

Nov 12, 2016. Also, the BIG advantage of using NTFS is you're not limited to 4GB when it comes to the install.wim. I'd rather not have to go through a long speech, with people who might not be that computer literate, about limitations of FAT32. I believe the current defaults are both NTFS for BIOS and UEFI, though I allow. Who Killed Hemant Kar Kare Ebook Login. Guide to prepare a bootable USB drive containing Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 10 installation files to install all versions of Windows from one USB.

I cant do it from dos because dos doesnt recognize the ntfs c drive. How can I perform a ntfs format on my ntfs c drive? You have Windows XP installed on the C partition? Do you have critical data on the C partition as well? Do you have critical data on the other partitions?

Do you want to have four partitions when you're done or only one? Is it your intent to remove Windows XP in the process of formating the C partition?

If you're goal is to wipe the C partition and have absolutely no operating system and then restart from scratch, all you have to do is boot from your WinXP cd and during the installation process format the C partition. Rehanfx Registration Code Serial Number. If you're wanting to format the C partition while leaving Windows XP on it, I'm not aware of any way of doing that. Formating=erasing everything on it. I want to wipe the c drive clean and Ill use ghost to reload the c image, so there is no sweat there.

I just want to start with the c drive (ntfs drive) clean. The d,e and f drives are all logical drives on the same physical drive. They are fat32 with critical data but I wont be messing with them. I deliberatly never put critical data on c just so I can reload the image anytime I want. So you say I could use the xp disk to do it.

Is it possible to reformat the c drive back to fat32 without reformating the whole physical drive? I just want to be clear. I can format the c (ntfs) drive back to fat32 without tampering with the other logical drives on the same physical drive? I always thought you have to first delete the drive then use fdisk again to set up the drive. I want to be sure not to jeppardize the d,e,and f drives. I just want to 1) simply wipe the c drive clean (either nfts or fat32) 2) if it is a simple thing to do then I would rather use fat32 in this particular case and would like to reformat it back to fat32 without having to save everything off d,e,and f first.

Thank you for the help dc. Hey Boys and Girls; I'm trying to do the same thing, - re-install on a 'clean' drive - (only 2 drive letters on the same physical disk - C: and D:) but when I put the Windows disk in the drive it wants to format and install windows on my D drive. Like dcsas, I keep all my data on the 'other' drive. If I exit out of the screen that wants to install on D:, Windows will allow me to re-install on the C: drive but it leaves all the crap there too! Am I missing something? The OS is Windows XP and, apparently, I have an OEM version.

There are many reasons to use NTFS with XP. Although you may have your reasons, I haven't seen you present a good reason to install XP onto a FAT32 partition. One issue with all Windows versions is that they tend not to install easily (or at all) over a newer version. In your case XP may have trouble installing over an existing Vista installation on a partition. In this case, you may end up having to 'wipe' the Vista partition with ACTIVE KILLDISK or DBAN if the installation program on the XP CD doesn't allow you to format it. * * * CAUTION: USE KILLDISK AND DBAN VERY CAREFULLY!!! * * * There is always a risk of making a mistake while repartitioning and/or formatting, so I would backup all important files from all partitions before attempting to format the 'C' partition.

An external hard drive or a couple DVD discs come in handy here.