Windows 200 reinstallation

I have Win2000 installed. I would like to clean up my C (boot)drive and reinstall 2000. My data is all in logical drive D. Using the setup floppys I get a choice to format drive C in NTFS or Fat but not in the Fat 32 that I am using.

If I try to format drive C using a Win95 or 98 startup floppy I get the message "insufficient memory" I am using an Athlon 1.4 and 512 of ram.

Can anyone help?

Pete77

 

You shouldn't format your c drive. Even though your data is on D, your MBR of C drive will boot your OS. If you format the C drive, you will remove the capability to boot your OS.
You are better off just deleting the files you don't want.
Also, just an FYI. Win2k will format with FAT32. However the drive has to be over 2GB. Otherwise it will default to FAT16.

 

Thanks for the reply. I do understand that in order to reformat drive C and make it bootable, I have to transfer the system files. I was planning on using the format C:/S command with my Windows 98 startup disk to do that before reinstalling Win 2000. Any idea why I get the message "insufficient memory" when I try to do this? Incidently my drive C partition is 5 GBs

Pete

 

Also I should add to the above that I have installed a new motherboard and it would seem to me that a cleanup and reinstallation of 2000 is in order.

Any help would be appreciated.

Pete

 

Bursley - if he used the 2K setup, wouldn't he be OK to blow C: away and reformat/reinstall the OS there? Or am I missing something (which has happened on more than one occasion ).

Pete - assuming you do decide to do the deed, why not use the 2K setup rather than messing around with Win9x? Also, since it sounds like you are up and running with the new MOBO, the term "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" comes to mind.

 

Well I am having trouble with some drivers and have a bunch of stuff on there I would like to get rid of.

I would really like to do a cleanup and reinstall the OS and my programs. If there is a way to reformat and copy the sys files back to the C: drive using the 2K setup floppys, it would be very useful to know how to do this.

I can't find the answer in any book or knowledgebase, though it would seem to me to be a rather basic proceedure. I see that there is quite a number of people looking at this thread so there must be some interest in this problem.

Thanks,

Pete

 

It may be me who is missing something here (not the first time for me either )
But if you have a new board in the machine I see no need for messing with boot floppies, why not just pop the Win2k CD in the machine, set the bios to boot from CD (a new board is guaranteed to have that option) and just run the Win2k installation directly from the CD-ROM.

During the installation you will be asked whether you want to perform a new installation or repair the old one, if you choose to do a new install you will be given the option of reinstalling Windows alongside the old install in another directory or to format the drive and reinstall from scratch (which sounds like what you want).
I believe that the reason you don't get to specifically choose FAT32/FAT16 is that MS seems to have abandoned FAT16 for everything but small (>2GB) drives.

 

Best way to do it is as Laage suggests. Formating with win98 (DOS) accomplishes nothing as the NT boot sector will get overwritten and have to later be repaired, anyway, by running a w2k repair install or by running fixboot from the Recovery Console. Or, do as Bursley suggested and just delete the files you no longer want, which would not disturb the current w2k boot sector.

 

Many thanks for the help.

Seems to me that when I was in setup I got the message that I could not format the c: drive. However I will make the CD bootalbe and try again, and assume the the C: drive will once again be bootable after the format.

Meanwhile I will back up on another hard disk just in case.

Pete