Problems with FDISK in MS-DOS

A while ago a friend of mine came over and formatted my 2 drives (C,D) in to just one (C). He did it by going through FDISK in MS-DOS. If I could get back into FDISK I THINK I can reformatted then back into one drive. (I had to do system restore, so they are back to C,D) However the problem is the that I have tried looking on varies site for MS-DOS commands but the none of the listed commands would work. (I probably did them incorrectly)

Any ideas how I could get into FDISK? How could I format drives C,D into just C?


[edit on 14-3-2005 by beyondSciFi]

I just tried running FDISK from within a XP command prompt and got a wonderful error. I'm guessing since you used system restore you are in XP. Did your friend have to use a boot floppy to get a command prompt? Also, as an alternative to FDISK perhaps you should look into Partition Magic or one of the other 'professional' hard disk programs. Additionally XP Pro has a built in disk manager with features that would help you.

Sarcasimo is right. You cannot fdisk within the OS. You have to boot to dos first. Also, If you are using xp or 2000 you dont have to fdisk. Fdisk will wipe your hard drive and all information. If you are running your Operating system now and just want to make the c and d drive one big drive, follow the instructions here.

w2k and wxp disk managment

If you really want to wipe the hard drive, and are sure that you can rebuild from scratch, here is a link for fdisk instructions.

Fdisk and Format instructions (poor layout page, but the best I could do on short notice)

Thats what it was called, Disk Management. Thanks for reminding me

How could I boot to FDISK without going into Windows first? How do I load right into MS-DOS?

[edit on 15-3-2005 by beyondSciFi]

Originally posted by beyondSciFi
How could I boot to FDISK without going into Windows first? How do I load right into MS-DOS?

[edit on 15-3-2005 by beyondSciFi]

With a bootable floppydisk that has MS-DOS on it. I believe that the Windows 98 Bootable floppydisk has FDISK on it, if you can find one.

FDISK is primarily intended to be used with FAT or FAT32 disk partitions. Since Windows 2000 and XP usually use NTFS (if you want security), FDISK is no longer considered an essential tool.

Originally posted by Ambient Sound
I believe that the Windows 98 Bootable floppydisk has FDISK on it, if you can find one.

bootdisk.com...

Originally posted by kinglizard
bootdisk.com...

Heh. There ya go. I still have an original boot disk made from Windows 95 that I've been using for about 9 years now, so I've never needed to go look for one.

Here is a FDISK tutorial. I didnt read through all of it, but it should help you. Be careful! FDISK can be damaging. (IE: Accidential format, or messed up boot drive) www.blackviper.com...

[edit on 3-15-2005 by Sarcasimo]

Oh yeah, FDISK can certainly damage your system if you don't know what you are doing. The only reason I might ever use it is to delete an existing hard drive partition.

Agreed, otherwise I use a more modern or non-archaic/microsoft disk tool.

Wow thanks for the help guys, I really appreciate it. I have been trying to do this for about a year now, but with just one post on BTS I got what I need. Thanks guys.

[edit on 15-3-2005 by beyondSciFi]

Glad to help, you will recieve our bills shortly.

Hi,

If you dont mind, can I please ask a question with regards to partitioning...?

I have a 20GB HD (Soon will buy 120GB but until then) and there is a partition on it but the windows essential files are on C:/ but it is like 5GB big and only has 400mb free after windows is installed. I need to upgrade to SP2 for XP but I cant because I dont have enough space for the windows update and I have cleared absolutely everything that I could. The other drive has like 7GB free after one or two things installed.

I read both links and I think the first one on disk management might help but it seems to describe more on how to change the appearance of things than how to actually use the program...

If I read it correctly, is it possible to make the smaller partition larger simply by increasing the percentage, and will I still keep all my stuff? I havent tried yet, dont wanna crash my HDD.

i didnt think win xp had fdisk in it

I think it does, just have to boot from a disk. Yeah when you go into MS-DOS and type "fdisk" it does not work. Im think you have to load in MS-DOS. Not too sure though...

[edit on 16-3-2005 by beyondSciFi]