DISKPART

I recently had to format an old 40GB Linux HD so I could use it for backup on my Windows XP installation. It took me a small while of thinking before I realized how I could do this without making some sort of Linux utility CD, and without using the disk partitioning program on the window shell (because I never have before and by the looks of it never will!) I realized that there must be a disk partitioning utility on the Windows XP disk, because when installing XP on an old Linux drive it forces you to use it. Sure enough, after booting the Windows XP disk and jumping into the recovery console, the CD's version of DISKPART was much easier to figure out. In no more than one minute the old Linux partitions were erased and a new partition was created. If any of you decide to use this and are not familiar with partitioning utilities, beware that the partition label does not represent what is in fact on the drive, and you will need to format the partition before being able to use it on Windows. You can do this using the format application on the Windows XP CD, or simply boot into Windows XP and attempt to explore the drive, at which point you will be prompted to format the drive (only in NTFS, use another method to format in FAT32.)

After this drive is finished formatting I will be reorganizing all of my files onto it. The 20GB I currently have as a backup will most likely turn into a secondary backup where I will keep all extremely important files. After a while I wish to get a USB hard-drive enclosure so I can take the drive out of the PC, as well as bring files to other computers.