Cannot Format C: drive

Question

I want to be able to format my c: drive in MS-Dos mode. I booted my computer with a Windows 98 bootable disk and when I type c: it does not recognize it. Can anyone help me?   Dell Dimension XPS (1st generation) 1GB of memory 3 Mhz   Thanks

dcgtls · Answer

Is your system configured for Raid?

davejohn · Answer

Your computer has SATA drives.  I don't think you'll find an MSDOS SATA driver.   Dave

Dev Mgr · Answer

The problem has nothing to do with raid or sata. The problem is that format is a command that's not native to the command.com in dos, so you have to have format.com on the floppy.

Also, dos cannot see a c-drive if it has an NTFS filesystem (default for XP), so even if you have format.com on the floppy, the "format c:" command wouldn't format the NTFS (XP) C-drive as it's not visible as a "C-drive" in dos.

handsom_1 · Answer

Thanks for your replies. It is a big help. Now I need to know one more thing. If I buy the FULL VERSION of Windows Vista Ultimate (not the upgrade), can I just insert the installation DVD and install Vista or do I have to format my c: drive.  That is why I wanted to format my c: before installing Vista, but MS-Dos does not recognize my c:   Waiting for your replies.  :-)   Thanks!

Uncle Ripper · Answer

It will format for you.

tphillips63 · Answer

@Handsom_1 wrote:

Thanks for your replies. It is a big help. Now I need to know one more thing. If I buy the FULL VERSION of Windows Vista Ultimate (not the upgrade), can I just insert the installation DVD and install Vista or do I have to format my c: drive. That is why I wanted to format my c: before installing Vista, but MS-Dos does not recognize my c:

Waiting for your replies. :-)

Thanks!

You sure are going through a lot to get where it will do what you want out of the package.
Vista will upgrade or replace its your choice during install but you need to boot off of the DVD to get that choice.
Once you do you will need to pay attention and read the screens as to where it installs and choose to delete the existing partitions and create and format new ones.

I can't believe it took till devmgr to recognize that NTFS is a non dos partition :)

Storage, Drives & Media

Cannot Format C: drive

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