Formating a hardisk

[nazirdigi]

Hi, i am new to this forum,
how can i format a ntfs file system hardisk without a win xp cd or dvd, like win98 formating with dos prompt?

[Ahmad]

Welcome to our world..

I think it is not possible with DOS, as you know DOS doesn't recognize NTFS file system, except for some tools like NTFS4DOS .. but these tools enable you to read from NTFS partitions not to format a partition using NTFS.

So, do you have any experience with Hiren's BootCD. It's the best solution to do whatever you want from boot.

In this CD, there is mini XP which you can use to format a partition using NTFS.
There are also bootable suites dealing with disks like Acronis. You can use it instead of FDisk to re-partition your disk and format it choosing any file system you want. And there are similar tools inside the mini XP.

[nazirdigi]

hi ahmad thanks for the reply,
no expereince with hiren boot cd,
where can find and how to format?

thanks.

[Ahmad]

You can download the latest version of Hiren's BootCD from this link:

http://www.hirensbootcd.org/download/

Burn the ISO image to a CD or DVD or you can put it on a USB flash drive using this guide:

http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd-on-usb-disk

After that, boot from the CD or USB, you'll find many options including Mini XP .. Choose the Mini XP option and it'll open an immediate XP loaded with many useful tools to use.
Or without any tools, format the disks you want using the normal right click then format.

[nazirdigi]

thank u ahmad for ur help. i will try.

[humbert]

Speaking of booting Hirens from a USB stick, I'm noticing these guys apparently changed the bootloader. USB Universal Installer from pendrivelinux.com worked great on Hirens 15.1 but didn't do much for 15.2. I finally got the thing to boot from USB using grubdos, but unlike before, it doesn't boot directly - first you see all kinds of strange messages on the screen, which never happened before. Hopefully Proteus will soon write his extended version of 15.2 with this problem fixed.

I often wonder why somebody out there doesn't write a program that sees the ISO's boot method and transfers it to a USB stick the same way a burning program transfers it to a CD. Just as an example, I've tried everything possible to boot my Acronis 2013 rescue CD from USB - no luck. Only CD boot works.