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Format hard drive without a floppy drive

nevglufc
Dabbler
Posts: 20
Registered: ‎01-08-2007

Format hard drive without a floppy drive

I have an old pc and it is not recognising the floppy drive so I cannot format the two partitions on the drive.
XP will only format the c drive amd I wanted to only have 1 partition.
Been into set up and it states diskette drive a disabled, but I cannot select it to enable.
any assistance accepted.
Cheers
8 REPLIES 8
VileReynard
Hero
Posts: 12,616
Thanks: 582
Fixes: 20
Registered: ‎01-09-2007

Re: Format hard drive without a floppy drive

If you have a CD drive you can boot from, you could use a variety of linux based boot disks which will let you manage partitions, including increasing/decreasing partion sizes.
Always backup everything when messing with partitions.

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shutter
Community Veteran
Posts: 22,206
Thanks: 3,769
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Registered: ‎06-11-2007

Re: Format hard drive without a floppy drive

It`s a long time since I had a computer with a floppy disc drive, but I do remember that you could "activate" or "disable" hardware by going into the BIOS..... So you might want to check there to see if the floppy is disabled....
I am sure somebody on here has more knowledge than me to help you go down that route if needed....
#
Not applicable

Re: Format hard drive without a floppy drive

When you go into XP Setup, instead of choosing to format the C: partition, take the option to delete it.
Also delete the 😧 partition too.
Subsequently you can then tell setup to create a new partition, using the full hdd as its size.
The steps should seem quite obvious now you know what you are looking for.
petlew
Pro
Posts: 7,416
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Fixes: 2
Registered: ‎30-08-2007

Re: Format hard drive without a floppy drive

One other drastic way round this is to er! fit a floppy drive, they literally cost a couple of quid nowadays, and a piece of cake to fit, and of course if you still have any files on floppy, you can transfer them to something a bit more up-to-date. Personally when building PC's I've always fitted a floppy, not a new one each time, just moved the same one from machine to machine. Don't use it very often, but I'm occasionally glad I've still got one. Or if you don't want to fit an internal floppy, I think you can still get an external drive for almost nothing.
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Oldjim
Resting Legend
Posts: 38,460
Thanks: 787
Fixes: 63
Registered: ‎15-06-2007

Re: Format hard drive without a floppy drive

Look on the hard drive supplier website (any of the ones you have in the PC) and download their setup program which should allow you to create a boot CD and format from that
Strat
Community Veteran
Posts: 31,320
Thanks: 1,609
Fixes: 565
Registered: ‎14-04-2007

Re: Format hard drive without a floppy drive

If the OP's backed up all needed data or has nothing to backup then James' suggestion is the simplest and most effective.
Single partition, nice clean install...perfect. Smiley
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Not applicable

Re: Format hard drive without a floppy drive

I've split the other OT (Off Topic ;)) posts off here, and dropped them into a new thread, which can be found here
RobDickson
Grafter
Posts: 653
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Registered: ‎06-08-2007

Re: Format hard drive without a floppy drive

I always put floppy disk drives on new PCs as well, even though I rarely use them (only for updating the BIOS really).
Have you checked the connections to your floppy drive? I spent ages trying to find out why a floppy drive wasn't working, only to find out that I'd forgotten to plug the power supply cord in months before.