uhhh How do i format a drive?

[Hitman]

every win2k CD I ever delt with was bootable.

[Capper]

okay....what kind of HDD is it? I know Seagate, Maxtor, and WD all of bootable programs you can download from their sites that format and clean their HDD....once you let me know which one, I'll try to link the appropriate program.
No one here is going to laugh at you, at one time or another we all get stumped by something that is either super simple (because we overcomplicate it looking for a hard solution) or we simply fall victim to a series of problems that aren't solved by one thing.

[yurimxpxman]

Originally Posted by Capper

No one here is going to laugh at you, at one time or another we all get stumped by something that is either super simple (because we overcomplicate it looking for a hard solution) or we simply fall victim to a series of problems that aren't solved by one thing.

oh the stories I could tell if I meant to embarrass someone... Yeah, we're not here to laugh at you. But do try another optical drive and let me know how that works out.

[fps justin]

its a seagate 160 gig sata drive. 8mb cache. I'll try to find another optical drive.

[Capper]

http://www.seagate.com/support/disc/utils.html

* Zero Filling an ATA (IDE) drive destroys 100% of the data on the drive. Make sure the drive is completely backed up before proceeding.

* The Zero Fill option in DiscWizard Starter Edition is the only safe method for use with Seagate hard drives. Some system BIOSs may include a Low Level Format option; use these at your own risk, as this may produce undesirable results.

DiscWizard Starter Edition can be downloaded as a part of the DiscWizard package. It includes two Zero Fill options, partitioning options, and high-level formatting options. Zero Fill writes zeros in each data sector up to the complete capacity of the drive and will clean up some file system defects.

The download routine for DiscWizard Starter Edition creates a bootable diskette. Boot from the diskette to start DiscWizard Starter Edition. After startup, select Utilities | Zero Fill Drive (Quick) or Zero Fill Drive (Full). Select the drive you want to erase, then select Zero Fill or Low Level.

Zero Fill Drive (Quick) will write over the beginning of the drive which includes the critical partition information, eliminating all partitions and information on the drive including the Master boot record. This is useful if you have a drive that has a corrupted partition or that you wish to erase to reinstall a fresh operating system and new data.

Zero Fill Drive (Full) will write over the entire data area of the drive. This is useful if a drive has bad sectors that cannot be fixed by the operating system. This will also erase all the data on the drive, but it will take several hours.

When the process completes, reboot the system from the operating system install CD and follow the instructions to prepare (partition and format) the drive and install the operating system.

[fps justin]

thank you rich. However, now that i have thought about my problem throughly, my REAL problem is trying to load an OS. Which has proven to beclose to impossible.

If winblows 2000 is bootable from CD... WTF ARE THERE BOOT DISCS.

i really just want winblows 2000 loaded on this dumb pc. TT_TT"

[polobunny]

Be sure first boot device is set to CDROM, you can set the others to disabled or the second one to HARDDRIVE.
Have the SATA/RAID driver floppy in the floppy drive.
Once it boots from the CD and enters the blue screen, hit F6 to load the SATA/RAID drivers. Unless you have a SATA/RAID controller which drivers were integrated in Windows 2000, you won't see the HDD without loading those drivers.
So once you pressed F6, you'll have to wait a bit for a few blue screens to pass then they'll ask you to press S to Specify the driver. Highligh the only one with the Windows 2000 suffix then press enter, then enter again (to continue) if i'm not mistaken.

[fps justin]

HUH?!? why do i need a sata raid driver now!?

i'm trying to load windows into a new pc with only one HDD.

[polobunny]

Didn't you say it was a SATA drive? Alot of the times to install Windows you'll need a SATA driver.

[fps justin]

i see. However... i have a sata drive in my pc and i didn't even use a driver like that...

EDIT: i have a much mroe devious plan now. I have this ata HDD in this old pc beside me from a slot pentium. I could use this old harddrive in this rig i'm trying to set up and take the 160gig seagate for MYSELF. MUHAHAHAHA