How do I access FDISK to delete the C: partition?

Question

I am aware of the fact that FDISK wipes the drive clean...this is precisely what I want to do. Thanks in advance...

Oh, btw, I am running Windows XP...

I do not have a floppy drive. I downloaded FDISK from bootdisks.com and burned it as a bootable disk...the computer boots to the disk fine, but when I try to delete the primary partition, it says that it cannot be done in "standard mode." Any thoughts?

Answer 1

You should be able to just type that into your command prompt for DOS. If you have XP Cd you can just re-install and request XP to format the HD and wipe off all information.

Answer 2

Fdisk is part of the old Win98 boot disk. If you don't have a Win98 boot disk, you can download one at: http://bootdisk.com

After you have downloaded the file, burn it to a floppy.

Set your bios to boot from the floppy first. Put the floppy into your "A" drive and start your computer. Let it load. Choose "Start Computer without CD-ROM support. This will take you to an "A" prompt. At the prompt, type, "fdisk" without the quotes. Go through the sequence for removing the primary DOS partition. Fdisk will report that there is "no" DOS partition. Hit Esc to restart fdisk and choose "remove non DOS partition.

Now you have no partition on your drive, and all data is gone. If you wish to format the drive in FAT32, restart the machine with the floppy in the drive, choose "Start computer without CD=ROM support, but this time when you come to the "A" promtp, type: format C:

If you wish to format back to an NTFS file structure, the one that Win2K, XP, and Vista use, the remove the floppy from it's drive and put your XP install disk into the CD drive and restart the system. When you come to the window that asks if you want to install XP now, read down a bit and create a partition, and then let XP format that partition. Stay close to your machine because when XP is finished with the format it will start to load Windows. At this point you need to shut down the computer. Your hard drive is now formatted and ready for use.

Answer 3

With Windows XP, you can get a "sort-of" version of DOS, which is what you have to get to, to use the FDisk command. You can get the whole procedure from Microsoft, Article 255867, in case you want a printed copy to follow. It helps to have that, just in case.

Click on Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools and Command Prompt. Assuming you know how to get back to the c:\ prompt, that's where you run your command.

Answer 4

If you ever need to fdisk if your OS is no longer functioning properly, make sure you have a bootdisk with fdisk. If you google boot disk + fdisk there's ready made disks that include fdisk.

A:\fdisk usually enough then;)

Answer 5

msdos porgram and in safemode