Reformatting.

[Sin_After_Sin]

OK here goes. I'll tell you what I know about my machine. It's an Acer Aspire 2.8Ghz. 512 megs of memory? Original HD is 80gigs. File system is FAT 32. About 5 months ago I had an additional HD installed. 320gigs, but that file system is NTFC.

I want to reformat the lot, but only seem to be able to do the smaller drive and the other remains untouched. Personally, I'd like to have the bigger HD as my primary drive, but I have no idea on how to go about it.

I've been told Fat 32 is not the best way to go, but I don't get the option to switch from one file system to the other when I reformat. I've been told about partitions. It's one thing to tell me to do it, but that's pointless if I'm not told "how" to do it.

I followed Wombats link to try and get the information required about my machine, but that just confused me even more. I've downloaded a spyware doctor and some other doctor by mistake lol I don't know what I'm doing. For someone like me who doesn't understand computer jargon, that makes sites like that useless as I don't know what to chase.

You guys are the brainiacs. Please help me *sob* If I've been to vague, let me know and I'll try and rectify that, but no promises.

 

[Atomic Rooster]

What operating system are you going to install?

Usually you put the OS install CD into the CDROM. boot the machine to the CD, and then you should be able to format the drive(s) to the specs you want and then install the OS.

 

[Sin_After_Sin]

Sorry. I forgot to mention it. It starts out as XP home, but once I have downloaded all microsoft updates it just says XP.

It doesn't do it. I get the option to continue or not 3 times. Once I click "yes" the 3rd time it begins to rebuild. Never have I seen the option to go to fat 32 or NTFC. The boot discs are only applicable to Acers. Can't be used on any other machine. I don't know if that has anything to do with it.

 

[Atomic Rooster]

Oh, you're using the Acer recovery disks. I'm not sure how to help you there.

 

[Sin_After_Sin]

OK no worries mate. Thanks anyway.

 

[Sin_After_Sin]

Come on guys. How do I reformat the second hard drive?

 

[Atomic Rooster]

OK. let's see if I got this straight. You have two drives, an 80GB and a 320GB drive. You want to make the 320 your main with the 80 as storage. Are they on the same channel or on separate cables?

 

[Sin_After_Sin]

Are they on the same channel or on separate cables?

LOL I have no idea mate. I think it will just be simpler if someone tells me the best way reformat the second drive and I'll leave things as they are.

And what's the deal with that geek site? How is a dummy like me suppose to know what to do there? LOL!

 

[Atomic Rooster]

XP correct? Just go to My Computer > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management. Click on Disk Management in the left pane. The drives will appear in the right pane. You can then right click the 320GB drive and format it there.

If you would like to convert your 80GB drive to NTFS, XP has a built in tool to do just that. Here's how: How to convert a FAT16 volume or a FAT32 volume to an NTFS file system in Windows XP

What "geek site" are you talking about?

 

[Sin_After_Sin]

In the "please read" thread started by Wombat

To find this information go here and get Everest. Everest 2.20 is available from here: http://www.majorgeeks.com/EVEREST_Fr...ion_d4181.html

It might as well be in Arabic for all the good it's doing me hahaha!

Yes, I'm running XP. Thank you for that mate.

I better ask. Is it best to do the conversion after a newly reformatted machine or doesn't it matter?