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Format Hard Drive NTFS -SOLVED-

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    Format Hard Drive NTFS -SOLVED-

    Greetings all! What a WONDERFUL day eh? Sun, breeze, good view of a park across the street, and visions of steak are bouncing in my head.

    Now, for the dark cloud on this day. The things I loath about being a geek.

    1.) everyone has a problem
    2.) everyone has suggestions or other type of 'help'
    3.) everyone questions the answers when they do not like them
    4.) everyone wants an explanation even if they do not understand it
    5.) everyone wants to learn your trix, but never give you credit
    6.) And the dreaded 'Is it fixed yet?!?!' when you are 5% into a reformat. LOL!

    Anyhoo, I got 'roped' into #1-3-4-6 with my wifes aunt. She has this old P3 800 that "some guy built for her, and left no CD's or manuals." -customer speak for "I threw it away because I did not know what it was for."- And her current XP; -cough-spit-gag-, install is so bloated/hosed that a boot&nuke is all I can think of. She and 'hers' are those types that click on every ad that pops up. "OOOOO, pretty smilies and 'cute' cursors? I MUST HAVE IT" -click- She's not the XP cd, but I want to put on W2K anyway since it IS a P3 800

    On with it. She has a TON of pictures on this drive; and of course does not know what a 'backup' is, and they need saved. I was going to slave an HDD, boot to Knoppix, and copy the pic folders over, kill and rebuild her drive, and move the pictures back. EZ enough I guess.

    My problem and question is this.

    If I slave this drive and boot to Knoppix; or insert other distro here, can I format it INSIDE Linux with an NTFS partition? Or must I create the partition before I boot the rescue CD?

    Easiest for me is to install the drive and create the partition, since booting to her XP installation only works 1/3 of the time, and I do not trust it being stable enough to actually do anything right.

    Thanks a ton community!
    Dell SC1425<br />1 Xeon 3GHZ CPU<br />1GB ECC-DDR2 RAM<br />Onboard ATI Radeon 7000-M&nbsp; w/ 16MB Fixed/unshared RAM<br />Dual 82541Gl Gigabit Nic&#39;s<br />DVD-ROM/CD-RW Combo<br />73GB SCSI Drive.<br />Never got Compiz to run properly on the ATI, but that is secondary of course.

    #2
    Re: Format Hard Drive NTFS

    I think I'm related to your wife -- her relatives must also be my relatives, the description is a match!

    Being a lazy geek, I would try the GParted live CD, and see if I could shrink the Windows partition, and then format the new partition (FAT32, I guess). If that worked, you could just copy the pix over to the new partition, and then gratify your impulse to nuke the Windows installation.

    Two cent's worth ....

    Comment


      #3
      Re: Format Hard Drive NTFS

      Well, I don't think that Linux can create NTFS partitions natively, and I don't have a tool to make them on my system.
      I guess you could check the repositories for one.
      Failing that, Linux can make FAT32 partitions, which Windows can convert to NTFS.

      In any case, the process I'd suggest is sticking in the other hard drive, booting to a LiveCD, copying everything important to that partition (which is preferably FAT32), reinstalling Windows on the primary hard drive (you might want to disconnect the second drive before this step), and copying the files over.

      Now that I'm done typing this, I find dibl suggests that you create another partition, skipping the second drive entirely.
      I personally wouldn't trust Windows to not touch it.

      Oh, and to help your aunt with the ad-clicking problem, I suggest that you install something like Privoxy for her. Works great for blocking ads, and it even includes a nice little "go there anyway" link.
      For external use only.

      Comment


        #4
        Re: Format Hard Drive NTFS

        Thanks for the suggestions folks. Since this 'project' is tonight, I just wanted a game plan. I mean, if it were mine I'd FTP it to another node on the network and be done. LOL!

        I think I will stay with the dual hard drive scheme though. And since QParted does FAT 32 it will serve my purpose. I forgot about FAT32, seems NTFS and EXT have pushed it out of my head. LOL!

        Seems safer, and I am at wits end with this box anyway. I mean, I installed a printer, her Outlook quit working. I installed a multi card reader, now she can't surf the internet. I ran ad-aware and IE stopped loading. I ran AVG and FireFox stopped loading. ROFL!! Just 'bad mojo' that started WAY before we even met, so she's not blaming me or nothing. She just wants it to work.

        If I meet the 'guy' that installed XP on a P3 800 w/ 256MB RAM I'd ban him from computing forever. HA

        I've tried to pull her the Linux way, however she's not very 'change friendly', and thinks that Windows invented the computer. Yeah, she thinks 'windows' is a man and or company and microsoft just writes Office. ROFL! I just grin and drink my tea.
        Dell SC1425<br />1 Xeon 3GHZ CPU<br />1GB ECC-DDR2 RAM<br />Onboard ATI Radeon 7000-M&nbsp; w/ 16MB Fixed/unshared RAM<br />Dual 82541Gl Gigabit Nic&#39;s<br />DVD-ROM/CD-RW Combo<br />73GB SCSI Drive.<br />Never got Compiz to run properly on the ATI, but that is secondary of course.

        Comment


          #5
          Re: Format Hard Drive NTFS

          Originally posted by SheeEttin
          Well, I don't think that Linux can create NTFS partitions natively, and I don't have a tool to make them on my system.
          I guess you could check the repositories for one.
          'mkntfs' should be able to format partitions to NTFS, in ubuntu it's in the 'ntfsprogs' package.

          I also kind of recall that the GUI partitioning tools (GParted and QTParted) can create or resize NTFS partitions if 'mkntfs' and 'ntfsresize' are installed (both are in the 'ntfsprogs' package)

          Comment


            #6
            Re: Format Hard Drive NTFS -SOLVED-

            The Kubuntu live CD's QTPartED can create NTFS partitions.

            Comment


              #7
              Re: Format Hard Drive NTFS -SOLVED-

              FYI I went with slaving a drive, booting to Knoppix, copying her pix to the slaved 20, killed and rebuilt her drive/drivers, put pix back, she is happy. And to quote her.

              "My printer scans now? It never did that before." She has an all-n-1. LOL!

              Anyrate, all have a grand day.
              Dell SC1425<br />1 Xeon 3GHZ CPU<br />1GB ECC-DDR2 RAM<br />Onboard ATI Radeon 7000-M&nbsp; w/ 16MB Fixed/unshared RAM<br />Dual 82541Gl Gigabit Nic&#39;s<br />DVD-ROM/CD-RW Combo<br />73GB SCSI Drive.<br />Never got Compiz to run properly on the ATI, but that is secondary of course.

              Comment


                #8
                Re: Format Hard Drive NTFS -SOLVED-

                Yay! A spare hard drive is a wonderful thing! 8)

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