Windows NT / NTFS to Win98 FAT32

[kopfjaeger]

Gents, I was gifted with a Dell Latitude CPi PII (366 MHz?) which came with WinNT installed (no WinNT CD). My other machines are Win98 / FAT32 and I soon found that WinNT just had too many communication issues to justify keeping it on the machine (ex. tried transferring files by USB, then Parallell connector, then eventually had to brute-force floppy copy).

Harddrive (an IBM TravelStar 6GN, I believe) was 6.4 GB, with C:\ at 2.1 GB's, while D:\ had remainder of drive. Ran FDISK and found that C:\'s partition could be deleted and reformatted in FAT32, but D:\ drive remains NTFS. I should note that I did try the standard method of deleting first virtual drives in the extended DOS partition, then the extended partition and only then the Primary Active DOS partition. NTFS doesn't want to leave.

[DISPLAY PARTITION INFORMATION]

Partition Status Type
C: 1 A PRI DOS
2 EXT DOS

I ran into a loop where FDISK 'cannot delete extended DOS Partition while logical drives exist.' Going to 'Display Drive Information' revealed that 'no logical drives [were] defined' in the extended partition. Telling FDISK to delete any and all virtual drives in the extended partition confirmed this.

I went to IBM's website to get a disk manager download, for which they seem to be demanding a princely sum of $25.00 or so for OnTrack and proof of purchase to boot.

Conducted a Net search and located an OnTrack "DM_2000" 7GB download. It doesn't immediately seem very helpful, offering only to either delete my MBR to restore it(?) or completely erase the HD by writing zeros across its entire surface.

Before I mess with my MBR or Zero out the drive are there any suggestions? Is that is what it takes to get rid of WinNT / NTFS?

I have Win98 install CD and floppy, which worked just fine, albeit just for the FAT32 part of C:\. They can't seem to scrape WinNT off it's virtual shoe.

Thanks for any wisdom.

Some older versions of FDISK won't even let you see NTFS partitions. The newer versions recognise them as "non-DOS" partitions, so that is what you have to look for.

Should be able to delete a NTFS partition with a win98SE boot disk. If you only have win98 first edition, go to www.bootdisk.com and d/load a win98SE boot disk file. Make the boot disk. Load it up and run FDISk, and kill any non-DOS partitions of the drive.

That should kill it.

More than one way to skin a cat!

Cheers
Mick

Welcome to TechIMO, BTW!

[PresterJohn]

d/l and run the killdisk utility (from a boot floppy):

http://www.killdisk.com/downloadfree.htm

[kopfjaeger]

Yowza.

Mick, thanks for the quick reply. I'll give it a go. I also happen to have Win98se lying around (and once all this gets sorted out, I'll tear it up all over again with RedHat 8.0. Getting really tired of BillGatus of Borg's Bloat-and-Spyware). In the meantime, I've got to get all machines on board.

Thanks again.

[kopfjaeger]

Mickwish, PresterJohn,

Thanks guys. Mick - sorry Dude, but your Win98se cure didn't take, on my machine at least. Big points for a super fast response, however.

PresterJohn did hit the bullseye with the software he directed me to. It was particularly helpful since I had already partitioned, formatted and loaded Win98 to the C:\ drive. The solution was in fact loading the DiskKill software (creepy loading something with that name), zero-writing all of D:\ then rebooting and running FDISK. After that, it went slicker'n Snot (heh heh).

Now the new quest is getting a video driver for the machine. Thus far neither the S3_trio nor the NeoMagic drivers obtain resolution better than 16-bit. Don't worry though, I think I can track this one down.

BTW - MickWish, you've ended up on my Ignore list for some reason. I didn't put you there and of course you're not listed there. Curious.