Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community  

Go Back   Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community > Interests > Tilted Technology


 
 
LinkBack Thread Tools
Old 11-16-2003, 11:15 AM   #1 (permalink)
Addict
 
Evil Milkman's Avatar
 
Location: Illinois
Major Reformatting Problem! *PLEASE HELP*

I'm typing this on my mom's computer...

Ok, basically, I'm an IDIOT! I tried reformatting my system and screwed it up majorily.

I use Windows XP Home Edition, and I wanted to get back some of my disk space that I had used up (I make movies and they take up tons of space). I've heard about boot disks and all but didn't think I would need one for what I was going to do. So, I tried setting up Windows XP but I didn't have enough space to do it with on my partioned space. Nothing helped, and before I knew it, I coudn't even boot Windows at all! So here I am, with no computer and finals coming up...

If anyone could PLEASE help me out, I'd really, really appreciate it!

Evil Milkman is offline  
Old 11-16-2003, 11:59 AM   #2 (permalink)
Upright
 
Hmm, not too sure I got all the details correct. The title of the thread mentions 'formatting', but the body infers 'reinstall.'

You tried to reclaim some space by formatting? That's certainly one way to get some free space =) But if your drive is out of space on the reinstall, it appears you haven't formatted. If that was your intention, you forgot that step.

If you don't want to format, you can delete your existing windows installation to free up space (since you're reinstalling anyways) for the new one. From a dos prompt type deltree c:\windows
splooge is offline  
Old 11-16-2003, 12:30 PM   #3 (permalink)
Addict
 
Evil Milkman's Avatar
 
Location: Illinois
No, no... I'm bad with computers, so bear with me.

I just wanted to reformat Windows XP Home edition... I followed the directions, but it ended up that I didn't have enough "partitioned" space to actually setup Windows again. So now I can't do ANYTHING but stay on the Setup screen basically. I don't even know how to get to DOS so that I can type that command you gave me!

The following message is what I am given when I try to restart Windows XP:

Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem. Could not read from the selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk hardware.
Please check the Windows documentation about hardware disk configuration and your hardware reference manuals for additional information.


So I can't do anything! No DOS, nothing. I have the Win XP Reinstallation CD in my CD-ROM, but it's obviously not helping to start Windows.

I'm so lost!

*(&(^#@#(%#@%#!!!!
Evil Milkman is offline  
Old 11-16-2003, 12:36 PM   #4 (permalink)
Banned
 
Location: 'bout 2 feet from my iMac
ok, take a DEEP breath. it'll be okay.

now. let's ask a few questions see if we can figure out what you did.

#1: you backed up your stuff... right? if so, you may be better off just wiping the drive and starting from scratch.

#2: you can't reformat windows. you reformat a hard drive (this means completely erasing it, and starting from scratch), and you reinstall an operating system. usually you do both, in that order.

#3: what directions were you following? If they're online would you please post a link?

#4: how is your drive partitioned? do you have 1 phsycal hard drive, but like c: drive d: drive and e:drive or something? how big is each one?
cheerios is offline  
Old 11-16-2003, 12:37 PM   #5 (permalink)
42, baby!
 
Dragonlich's Avatar
 
Location: The Netherlands
Theoretically, if you can boot from the windows install CD (perhaps go into the bios to set the proper boot order?), you can then remove all partitions on the harddisk. This will then allow you to "reclaim" the disk, by creating new partitions and formatting them.

All this partitioning and formatting can be done from the Windows setup program, without any need for such ancient things as "DOS". But if you must, you can try a MS-DOS boot disk, use FDISK to remove the partitions, and then set up windows from the CD.

However, if you do any of the above, your harddisk will be wiped, including all the data on it. Depending on your goal, this might not exactly be what you want.
Dragonlich is offline  
Old 11-16-2003, 12:38 PM   #6 (permalink)
beauty in the breakdown
 
Location: Chapel Hill, NC
Quote:
Originally posted by cheerios
ok, take a DEEP breath. it'll be okay.

now. let's ask a few questions see if we can figure out what you did.

#1: you backed up your stuff... right? if so, you may be better off just wiping the drive and starting from scratch.

#2: you can't reformat windows. you reformat a hard drive (this means completely erasing it, and starting from scratch), and you reinstall an operating system. usually you do both, in that order.

#3: what directions were you following? If they're online would you please post a link?

#4: how is your drive partitioned? do you have 1 phsycal hard drive, but like c: drive d: drive and e:drive or something? how big is each one?
What he said. Im pretty confused here as to what you did...
__________________
"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws."
--Plato
sailor is offline  
Old 11-16-2003, 12:42 PM   #7 (permalink)
Banned
 
Location: 'bout 2 feet from my iMac
sailor... I'm a she... :P
cheerios is offline  
Old 11-16-2003, 12:53 PM   #8 (permalink)
Knight of the Old Republic
 
Lasereth's Avatar
 
Location: Winston-Salem, NC
Yeah, you need to give us a bit more info before we can help. As far as I understood it, you have your HDD partitioned into different drives, and the one you want Windows on is too small to install.

If you have your data backed up, it's as simple as deleted the partitions using the Windows XP CD, creating ONE partition (C:), then formatting it and installing XP on it. This can ALL be done using the Windows XP CD like Dragonlich said.

Formatting and installing Windows XP is very, very simple as long as you have your data backed up. Tell us if you have partitions and how big they are if ya want detailed instructions (which we can all give). Good luck!

-Lasereth
__________________
"A Darwinian attacks his theory, seeking to find flaws. An ID believer defends his theory, seeking to conceal flaws." -Roger Ebert
Lasereth is offline  
Old 11-16-2003, 01:15 PM   #9 (permalink)
Junkie
 
Location: North Hollywood
boot from the windows XP setup disk, find the recovery console, login in to the last version of windows usually C:\windows , navigate the disk to a placve where you know are some giant files you can recover and delete them

it sounds complicated but its not, just follow the instructions, the only complicated part is finding the data you can delete that will give you enough space, you may get away with just deleting the pagefile.sys which is usually at c:\pagefile.sys

http://support.microsoft.com/default...NoWebContent=1

After thats done, rerun the installer from the XP CD. you may even get away with a recovery step from the boot CD instead of a reinstall.

Free up as much space as you possibly can without deleting stuff you need.

if you get stuck come back and get some more clarifications, if you can use dos you can use the recovery console.
charliex is offline  
Old 11-16-2003, 04:30 PM   #10 (permalink)
Addict
 
Evil Milkman's Avatar
 
Location: Illinois
Everyone,

The problem has been resolved. Turns out I had to call tech support and do some debugging of my system... It seemed pretty complicated. I'm back up and running now.

THANKS! :d
Evil Milkman is offline  
Old 11-16-2003, 05:50 PM   #11 (permalink)
beauty in the breakdown
 
Location: Chapel Hill, NC
Quote:
Originally posted by cheerios
sailor... I'm a she... :P
Sorry about that

Milkman, glad to hear the problem was fixed.
__________________
"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws."
--Plato
sailor is offline  
Old 11-16-2003, 06:30 PM   #12 (permalink)
Banned
 
Location: 'bout 2 feet from my iMac
s'okay, I know how weird it is for the male population to associate boobs w/ technical competence

glad things are back running MilkMan!!

*still kinda wonders what the problem was*
cheerios is offline  
Old 11-16-2003, 06:50 PM   #13 (permalink)
Registered User
 
Location: Deep South Texas
CHEERIOS---there is no way in hell any one in deep self TEXAS would ever take you as a HE>>>L/Y..
viejo gringo is offline  
Old 11-16-2003, 09:08 PM   #14 (permalink)
Addict
 
Evil Milkman's Avatar
 
Location: Illinois
I think the problem was that I didn't erase enough disk space to actually reinstall Windows XP... I tried to do it all backwards, basically. So it ended up I was stuck on the DOS type setup thing and couldn't boot Windows... I had to debug the entire system and erase it.
Evil Milkman is offline  
 

Tags
major, problem, reformatting

Thread Tools

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are On
Pingbacks are On
Refbacks are On



All times are GMT -8. The time now is 01:37 AM.

Tilted Forum Project

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
Search Engine Optimization by vBSEO 3.6.0 PL2
© 2002-2012 Tilted Forum Project

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360