AAHHHHH, Need to reformat, but want to dual-boot. NEED HELP!

[nposce 0]

Ok, my comp is all jacked up right now, running rediculosly slow, and explorer and internet explorer are both not running, ctrl alt delete (task-manager) is super funky, nothing is going right.

 

Heres my problem. I have 2 partitions and they are both NTFS partitioned. 20 gigs each, (40 gig total hard drive space). On partion one; i have Windows 2000, all my programs, games, MS Office, documents, pictures, what not, (i dunno why i did it that way, but some how i did, even though I didn't want it that way) and on my second partition I have lots of downloaded stuff; mp3's, movies, and misc downloads (no, not ****).

 

Now, I know i need to format my partitions. I know i need Win98 on the first partition, but it is NTFS (which i need to switch to FAT32) and Win2000 on the second partition (which is also NTFS). Now, do i make both partitions FAT32 or do i make it partition 1:FAT32 , partition 2:NTFS.

 

Heres how i was thinking of doing it:

 

Move any important files from Part 1 to Partition 2 (where win2000 will be installed). Reformat partition 1 and install Win98. After i do that, move all my files back to partition 1 (music, movies, documents, pictures) then reformat partition 2 and install Win2000.

 

And my last question is - Before i Install Win2000, do I have to install dos or something on partition 2 because in the past when i have done a clean install i get a funky stop error. If I do have to, how do Install DOS onto partition 2.

 

Thanks

NPOSCE

[Sparkhard 0]

Ok, your idea sounds good. But you may run into a few problems. First of all, if your primary partition and extended partition are NTFS then you wont be able to just format them with 98. Win 98 wont recognize the NTFS partition to format, and since you have to install win98 first your kinda screwed.

 

 

you will have to fdisk and then delete the primary partition. BUT you cant delete a primary partition while you have an extended partition on the same drive.

 

SO you have run into a bit of a conundrum here.

 

You MAY want to try and reinstall win2k and see if it can format it back to FAT 32. then after it is all FAT32ized format it again and then install 98. But i have never done this and it may not work.

 

See if partition magic will do it and try to find a copy.

 

But to fix your messed up install you may want to do a win2k upgrade over the existing 2k install. That may be the safest route.

 

Good luck, Sparkhard

[Ant -|- One 0]

Why not format FAT32 the target partition under Win2K, simply ?

[Sparkhard 0]

Umm,

 

because his target partition is drive C: and last i checked you cant partition the drive that windows is installed on while you are running windows.