Reformat

Ugh, my least favorite 3 syllable word. I have XP Home SP3 and I'm trying to reformat my C drive using my original XP Full CD rom but it warns me that I have a newer version of XP on the drive and all my stuff will be lost. The thing is, the Continue button remains grayed out. I can't continue. Do I have to do some Run command?

One other thing, I forget which applies to partitioning......I can change files from NTFS to Fat32 but not the reverse....or is it Fat32 to NTFS but not the reverse?

It's a one way street, FAT32 to NTFS only. And of course it's partitions that are NTFS'd, not files (I'm nit-picking at the moment). Dunno about the install, don't you have to format the disk first with the big F command and then put the O/S on? It sounds as if you're reinstalling over the existing O/S. Someone who does this sort of thing every five minutes will be along in a mo. Yes, I wish there was a Just do as I Blooming Well Say button on PC's.

Yeah, I never did (or had to do) that big F command before. My reformats just involved reinstalling the OS.

This HP machine came with a Windows ME install disk. I'm hoping I don't have to install ME before I install. But then again, I do want a small partition of ME on the drive, as well as a large partition of XP. I have Partition Magic 8. And if you can only go from Fat to NT.....that might mean I need to install ME first, shrink it, and the remaining partition change to NTFS.

I think Partition Magic can format either way?

Partition Magic 8 can reformat both, but Boot Magic (within PM8) can only exist on a FAT32 partition, not NTFS. (Great move, Power Quest. :rolleyes: What a bunch of maroons.)

Partition Magic 8 can reformat both, but Boot Magic (within PM8) can only exist on a FAT32 partition, not NTFS. (Great move, Power Quest. :rolleyes: What a bunch of maroons.)

I don't like anything from Norton (Symantec) as they borged Power Quest to make it their own.

Have a look at:

EASEUS Partition Manager 3.0 Home Edition

http://www.partition-tool.com/personal.htm

I'm using IE8 RC1 on XP Home SP3 and it seems a a bit quicker than IE7.

Okay, after dodging several catch-22s I managed to get XP and ME partitioned and accessible. But I had to install XP as Fat32. No biggie, that's how I've had it for the past 4 years.

I'm not sure how much of a deal it is, probably no biggie because ME and XP are now a new installs so anything added is already mapped accordingly. But when I installed ME, my CD & DVD drives were correctly mapped as M and N. My installed XP recognizes them as D and E. Do you think this will cause any major hassles? It's a lone pooter, not networked to a server or other pooters.