Cannot format a network drive (on a PC)

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slackulaslackula
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
First, let me apologize for asking a PC question, but all I know are Macs now. So I have no idea about where to find a decent chat board on which to ask a PC question. You are all so helpful on my Mac questions, so I thought I'd ask a quick PC question.



I have an old PC with Windows 2000 installed on it. I want to clear off the hard drive and install Windows 98 and make it into an educational and rudementary game machine for my young child. Most all of the older educational software we have will only run on Windows 98.



But when I boot into DOS and try to re-format the c: drive, I get the error message "Cannot format a network drive". Am I out of luck? It seems as if the darn thing doesn't want to let me clear off the hard drive and change it back from Windows 2000 to Windows 98. I wouldn't think it would be that difficult.



Thanks in advance for all of your helpful advice!



Comments

  • Reply 1 of 7
    fotnsfotns Posts: 301member
    Boot from the DOS floppy, fdisk it to delete the partition and then create a new primary partition. Reboot from the DOS floppy again and then format c:.
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  • Reply 2 of 7
    paulpaul Posts: 5,278member
    couldn't he just put in a windows 98 CD and let that reformat?
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  • Reply 3 of 7
    fotnsfotns Posts: 301member
    If he boots off the CD he will be still essentially be booting off a floppy, the boot image on the CD is the DOS boot floppy. It still won't have a GUI. And he may not be able to just reformat it if the drive is formatted NTFS. Repartitioning it only takes a few minutes and will make the process go smoother.
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  • Reply 4 of 7
    the generalthe general Posts: 649member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by FotNS

    If he boots off the CD he will be still essentially be booting off a floppy, the boot image on the CD is the DOS boot floppy. It still won't have a GUI. And he may not be able to just reformat it if the drive is formatted NTFS. Repartitioning it only takes a few minutes and will make the process go smoother.



    if the drive is NTFS, he will not be able to use the dos fdisk to partition it. what he will need to do, is boot up with his win2000k installation disks or cd, start the install, get to the point where it asks what partition, highlight the partition and tell it to delete it. he then can hit create, and make a new non-ntfs partition, once that is done, abort the installation, reboot with floppy format C and install win98..(this of course is if it has NTFS). technically he wouldnt have to create a new partiation and could use fdisk on his dos disk or win98 cd as well.
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  • Reply 5 of 7
    fotnsfotns Posts: 301member
    The DOS fdisk can delete NTFS partitions. You have to select option 3 at the main menu to delete a partiton, then option 4 to delete non-DOS partition.
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  • Reply 6 of 7
    slackulaslackula Posts: 262member
    Thank you all for your suggestions. I'll try these options out this evening.



    Have a great start to the new year!



    Ed Slack



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  • Reply 7 of 7
    slackulaslackula Posts: 262member
    Worked like a charm!



    Thank you everyone!!



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