i need advice about formatting a HD [Archive]

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ubamous3

06-15-04, 01:27 PM

1 of my friend's computer has been acting up real badly possibly due to virus and malwares,etc.. 1/ it's on winxp pro and has office 2003 2/ it has 2 partitions with the important data on D partition i'm trying to format it clean and install win2k pro instead of winxp pro but will still use office 2003 i have already backed up all the data on D as well as the files in the c:documents and settings folder, program files folder, and windows folder to another HD within the LAN now, i have partition magic version 8; but i have never formatted a disk which is the primary disk before, so i'm a little cautious, plus, it's going from xp to 2000 so i dont know if there s anything i need to consider before i hit the format button in partition magic please advise. Thanks also, if i format c, what will happen to the D partition? will all the data there still be intact even tho the OS will be different? i have already backed them up but i'm just curious ---------------- another question, i have a fat32 HD (not the bootable drive) and i want to convert it to ntfs, what r the steps in partition magic? can i just convert it while leaving the data on the disk there or should i move all the data out of the HD first and then convert and move back the data?

ElrichMeister

06-15-04, 01:27 PM

why are u gonna go from xp tp 2000? xp should work fine. i dont think u can back up installed programs (might be wrong), i say u just reinstall XP, give him some firewalls, and tell him to update xp, and to not click "yes" on those pop up things on websites

TranceJunkieXL

06-15-04, 01:27 PM

You can't format the primary partition from Partition magic. If he had the primary partition formatted in NTFS, he'll have to go into boot disk and delete the primary partition first. Then he can create a new partition with 100% of the available space. exit FDisk and reboot the computer, and then format c: (make sure fdisk was done properly the first time and c: is currently inaccessible - don't want to delete the data on the secondary partition by mistake).

in54n3

06-15-04, 01:27 PM

also if hes having trouble from a virus, its probably infected some of his files on the d drive, which u would just be transferring the virus on to the next install of windows lol, make sure u dont save any of the exe's, or very few i guess

ubamous3

06-15-04, 01:27 PM

i hope i can respond this time b/c when i tried to respond to ElrichMeister's post, it wouldnt go through for some reason anyway, i did manage to format the C partition through PM v8, b/c when i tried to do a format C at the dos prompt or through window explorer, it wouldnt allow me to do it now that computer is on win2k pro working fine (mostly) and the D drive with the data is intact (yay!!!) now the only 2 problems i have is the drivers for Multimedia Audio Controller PCI Device Universal Serial Bus (USB) Controller when i double click on it (in device manager), it doesnt tell me what the exact name of the file it's looking for so when i browse to the location of the old backed up xp folder, it doesnt search recursively to find the correct driver like it would with a CD or disk. Plus, the driver that i had backed up is xp, so it wouldnt work anyway ------- here's some stats of the system from aida32 reports; hopefully, it helps you hep me decipher the problem Motherboard: CPU Type Intel Pentium 4A, 2666 MHz (5 x 533) Motherboard Name Asus P4S533-VL Motherboard Chipset SiS 651 System Memory 1024 MB (DDR SDRAM) BIOS Type Award Medallion (12/05/02) Communication Port Printer Port (LPT1) Display: Video Adapter nVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440 (Asus AGP-V8170) 3D Accelerator nVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440 Multimedia: Audio Adapter SiS 7012 Audio Device Storage: Floppy Drive Floppy disk drive Disk Drive Maxtor 6Y120L0 (120 GB, 7200 RPM, Ultra-ATA/133) Optical Drive HL-DT-ST CD-RW GCE-8400B (40x/12x/40x CD-RW) Optical Drive PIONEER DVD-ROM DVD-120R (16x/40x DVD-ROM) Partitions: C: (NTFS) 24309 MB (21322 MB free) D: (NTFS) 92930 MB (89322 MB free) ---------- BIOS Properties: Vendor Award Software, Inc. Version ACPI BIOS Revision 1001 Release Date 12/05/2002 Size 256 KB Boot Devices Floppy Disk, Hard Disk, CD-ROM Capabilities Flash BIOS, Shadow BIOS, Selectable Boot, EDD Supported Standards DMI, APM, ACPI, ESCD, PnP Expansion Capabilities PCI, AGP, USB --------- Motherboard Properties: Manufacturer ASUSTeK Computer INC. Product P4S533VL Version REV 1.xx Serial Number xxxxxxxxxxx ------------ Motherboard Properties: Motherboard ID 12/05/2002-SiS645-P4S533VL Motherboard Name Asus P4S533-VL Front Side Bus Properties: Bus Type Intel NetBurst Bus Width 64-bit Real Clock 133 MHz (QDR) Effective Clock 533 MHz Bandwidth 4266 MB/s Chipset Bus Properties: Bus Type SiS MuTIOL Bus Width 16-bit Motherboard Manufacturer: Company Name ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Product Information http://www.asus.com/products/mb/mbindex.htm BIOS Download http://www.asus.com/support/download/download.aspx -------- the asus site doesnt have my exact motherboard but it has one named P4S533-VM and they share chipset (this is per someone else's help; bless his heart),so i dowlnoad them but the only one that worked is the one for the video card; the rest of the above drivers dont work please help me; i installed driver guide toolkit but to be honest, i dont know how to use it to find the missing drivers; i only see its use in lising drivers and restoriing drivers

ronlangelaan11

01-09-05, 06:42 PM

The Asus P4S533-VL is a Third party board manufactured for/by Sony.

For system upgrades for this board and the components you mention go to
http://www.vaio-link.com/tutorials/memory/memory.asp?m=1218&l=en&ts=p60 or more in general to http://www.vaio-link.com

Zefram

01-13-05, 12:22 PM

Kindly go to this Asus site and select the motherboard model.............
http://france.asus.com/support/download/download2.aspx?type=exact&item=Socket478
Or go to this SiS website and search for your motherboard chipset.............
http://download.sis.com/

Update: Yeah, found out the link for that mobo..............
http://usa.asus.com/mb/socket478/p4s533-vm/overview.htm
select the driver download and wallah! done already!