Reinstalling Win2000

oqtoe

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I had 2 hard drivers in my computer, bother fat32 so I decided to formate the master drive which windows was running off of to NTFS though the win2000 setup cd. I must of missread during installation but I reinstalled windows then after this the drive was converted into NTFS. I assumed that this would after wipe the drive after conversion. At the end of this I had what looked like a fresh install but the main c drive was full with everything from my previous install. This is not what I was looking for.

I'm wondering how to correctly clear the main drive out and reinstall windows without having leftover files from the previous install.

Any help would be appreciated.
 

Teq

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Hi oqtoe,
Boot into the win2k CD. Select the option to setup win2000 from a fresh install. When asked if you want to reformat, select NTFS and then follow the normal installation steps from there.

The onscreen screen instructions are very clear, so spend some time reading the screen as you go along.

As an aside... when you use the "Convert" tool to change a drive over to ntfs you end up with 512byte allocation units and all the directory overhead that goes with it. When you format from the win2k setup it creates 4k allocation units which run faster than fat32. Once the allocation unit size is set, you can't change it. So it is worth getting it right.
 

elzt

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I think you have to first select the delete partition option and then re-create it again. Otherwise Win2K won't format the drive. It would just overwrite the previous installation instead.
 

Teq

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Hi Elzt,
There may be different versions of the installer proggy out there, but any win2k CD I've seen first asks if you wish to reinstall or repair an installation, then after selecting reinstall it offers you the option to change your partitions or format the existing ones... just choose the format option and then select NTFS.
 

oqtoe

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I've tried to delete the partition but it doesn't let me. Then it asks me to install or repair so I install then it warns me that there is an OS currently on the drive and that installing another might make it unstable. I had no problem deleting and recreating the partition on the slave drive but Windows Setup just ignores when I press "D" on that partition to delete.
 

elzt

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Teq. maybe you're right about the different versions, but mine as well as many other installation procedures given on the web will ask you to delete partition first before you can format the drive. Anyway, this guide might be helpful to oqtoe:

<A HREF="http://www.techadvice.com/win2000/i/install-win2k-pro.htm" target="_new">http://www.techadvice.com/win2000/i/install-win2k-pro.htm</A>

Just ignore the boot disks part as you'll be booting off the cd.
 

oqtoe

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I got impacient and decided to us "Partition Magic". Thanks for the help anyways. I'll bookmark the url for next time
 

Teq

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Hi Elzt,
The link you posted took me to a description of the same installer process I'm used to.

The first box asks "Setup / Repair / Quit"... chose setup.

In the second box they show a menu with the option "To setup windows 2000 on the selected item press ENTER"... That's all you have to do, highlite the C: drive and hit enter.

The next question is about formatting. There you pick your file system and hit ENTER to go ahead. On an already formatted disk, there is an option to leave the current filesystem intact (i.e. not format) which will end up with you installing overtop, instead of doing a clean install. Just pick NTFS or FAT32 and hit enter.

There is no reason to re-partition a hard disk before re-formatting. And, if you have a lot of data on one of the existing partitions, there is a darned good reason not to!





<b>(</b>Press ALT-F4 for IQ Test<b>)</b>
 

elzt

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Teq, you're right! I must have overlooked that step... it's been a long time since I last installed Win2K. Thanks again anyway.