Alpha Software Mobile Development Tools:   Alpha Anywhere    |   Alpha TransForm subscribe to our YouTube Channel  Follow Us on LinkedIn  Follow Us on Twitter  Follow Us on Facebook

Announcement

Collapse

The Alpha Software Forum Participation Guidelines

The Alpha Software Forum is a free forum created for Alpha Software Developer Community to ask for help, exchange ideas, and share solutions. Alpha Software strives to create an environment where all members of the community can feel safe to participate. In order to ensure the Alpha Software Forum is a place where all feel welcome, forum participants are expected to behave as follows:
  • Be professional in your conduct
  • Be kind to others
  • Be constructive when giving feedback
  • Be open to new ideas and suggestions
  • Stay on topic


Be sure all comments and threads you post are respectful. Posts that contain any of the following content will be considered a violation of your agreement as a member of the Alpha Software Forum Community and will be moderated:
  • Spam.
  • Vulgar language.
  • Quotes from private conversations without permission, including pricing and other sales related discussions.
  • Personal attacks, insults, or subtle put-downs.
  • Harassment, bullying, threatening, mocking, shaming, or deriding anyone.
  • Sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, or otherwise discriminatory jokes and language.
  • Sexually explicit or violent material, links, or language.
  • Pirated, hacked, or copyright-infringing material.
  • Encouraging of others to engage in the above behaviors.


If a thread or post is found to contain any of the content outlined above, a moderator may choose to take one of the following actions:
  • Remove the Post or Thread - the content is removed from the forum.
  • Place the User in Moderation - all posts and new threads must be approved by a moderator before they are posted.
  • Temporarily Ban the User - user is banned from forum for a period of time.
  • Permanently Ban the User - user is permanently banned from the forum.


Moderators may also rename posts and threads if they are too generic or do not property reflect the content.

Moderators may move threads if they have been posted in the incorrect forum.

Threads/Posts questioning specific moderator decisions or actions (such as "why was a user banned?") are not allowed and will be removed.

The owners of Alpha Software Corporation (Forum Owner) reserve the right to remove, edit, move, or close any thread for any reason; or ban any forum member without notice, reason, or explanation.

Community members are encouraged to click the "Report Post" icon in the lower left of a given post if they feel the post is in violation of the rules. This will alert the Moderators to take a look.

Alpha Software Corporation may amend the guidelines from time to time and may also vary the procedures it sets out where appropriate in a particular case. Your agreement to comply with the guidelines will be deemed agreement to any changes to it.



Bonus TIPS for Successful Posting

Try a Search First
It is highly recommended that a Search be done on your topic before posting, as many questions have been answered in prior posts. As with any search engine, the shorter the search term, the more "hits" will be returned, but the more specific the search term is, the greater the relevance of those "hits". Searching for "table" might well return every message on the board while "tablesum" would greatly restrict the number of messages returned.

When you do post
First, make sure you are posting your question in the correct forum. For example, if you post an issue regarding Desktop applications on the Mobile & Browser Applications board , not only will your question not be seen by the appropriate audience, it may also be removed or relocated.

The more detail you provide about your problem or question, the more likely someone is to understand your request and be able to help. A sample database with a minimum of records (and its support files, zipped together) will make it much easier to diagnose issues with your application. Screen shots of error messages are especially helpful.

When explaining how to reproduce your problem, please be as detailed as possible. Describe every step, click-by-click and keypress-by-keypress. Otherwise when others try to duplicate your problem, they may do something slightly different and end up with different results.

A note about attachments
You may only attach one file to each message. Attachment file size is limited to 2MB. If you need to include several files, you may do so by zipping them into a single archive.

If you forgot to attach your files to your post, please do NOT create a new thread. Instead, reply to your original message and attach the file there.

When attaching screen shots, it is best to attach an image file (.BMP, .JPG, .GIF, .PNG, etc.) or a zip file of several images, as opposed to a Word document containing the screen shots. Because Word documents are prone to viruses, many message board users will not open your Word file, therefore limiting their ability to help you.

Similarly, if you are uploading a zipped archive, you should simply create a .ZIP file and not a self-extracting .EXE as many users will not run your EXE file.
See more
See less

Hard Drive Reformat

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    Hard Drive Reformat

    This isn't exactly a straight Alpha question but it's Sunday afternoon and the activity on the board is, shall we say, 'light'?

    In order to have all LAN networking options available, I must reformat my hard drive with Win 2K Pro. For some reason, when this OS as installed, some of the network features didn't install and are greyed out.

    I tried upgrading but that did not work. Then, after making backups, I tried a 'clean install'. It seemed to work and I was able to network to my other computer. I began loading software. I loaded Norton System works but Live update wouldn't load due to an error. Next, I uninstalled Norton. From that point on, things really got mixed up. After rebooting the computer, I was back to the 'old' setup and all that I did was gone, vanished into thiner than thin air. I've searched hi & low, checked users, etc., no sign of the new install.

    Obviously, a 'clean install' doesn't reformat the hard drive and install Win 2k. It merely sets up another 'user', temporarily 'blocking out' the old verson. What must I do to accomplish a authentic 'clean install'?

    Thanks for the advice.

    kenn
    TYVM :) kenn

    Knowing what you can achieve will not become reality until you imagine and explore.

    #2
    RE: Hard Drive Reformat

    hi ken:

    i'm not sure if win2k has this dos utility "fdisk". if you can find this file run it and delete the partitions. then run it again and setup new partitions (you will need a system disk with the utility on it). this will ensure that all data has been removed. another possibility would be to run an unconditional format "format c: /u".

    hope this helps.

    regards,

    ed

    Comment


      #3
      RE: Hard Drive Reformat

      Hi Ed,

      Win 2k doesn't need to partition the diskbecause the file system is NTFS. However, when I ran the second 'clean install' it think it partitioned on its own, leaving the old files alone. I suspect this is so because the used portion is now over 5 megs whe it was about 3 megs.

      I've checked the properties of drive C but it doesn't show a partition. If I can find the other partition, perhaps I can transfer files to the new partition and delete the old partititon or at least make in a lot smaller.

      How can I check for the other possible partition?

      Thanks, much,

      kenn
      TYVM :) kenn

      Knowing what you can achieve will not become reality until you imagine and explore.

      Comment


        #4
        RE: Hard Drive Reformat

        OK, Here's what happened,

        Not only did the disk partititon but it set up win2k as another OS so that when I boot up there is a choice between the two OS. The catch is that they have the same name so one doesn't know which is which. If I could rename one, I could live with that as it would act somewthing like a buffer.

        Both OS are named: Mocrosoft Windows 2000 Professional. Does anyone know how I could rename one?

        Thanks,

        kenn
        TYVM :) kenn

        Knowing what you can achieve will not become reality until you imagine and explore.

        Comment


          #5
          RE: Hard Drive Reformat

          hi Ken....

          I am not real up on windows 2k..... but if you can set the file attributes in the second itteration of windows to "archive"..... you should be able to delete the whole folder from sub folders out removing all files from each sub folder then removing the folder..... I would check the registry to make sure that the keys are not set to the windows OS that you are deleting......I am thinking that a utility to change the attribute will speed this up, changing each file seperately will give you gray hair.....

          As for renaming .... you might get away with that but I think that your best bet would be to remove the second copy of the OS...... I think keeping it is just asking for trouble... its not quite the same as a duel os with 2 different operating systems....


          if you want a backup of the installed OS, & have a spare hard drive you might use a disk manager to copy the partition to another hard drive & then store it incase of an emergency....

          In anycase proceed with caution......


          doug

          Comment


            #6
            RE: Hard Drive Reformat

            Afternoon Doug,

            Keep from getting gray hair? What amount is left has been gray for, shall we say, more than a couple of months?

            I'll do some cautious exploring. This is sort of like horse shoes, close but no cigar.

            Thanks for the advice.

            kenn
            TYVM :) kenn

            Knowing what you can achieve will not become reality until you imagine and explore.

            Comment


              #7
              RE: Hard Drive Reformat

              Ken,
              Have you looked into the Microsoft Knowledge Base. There may be some answers there. www.microsoft.com then support.

              Comment


                #8
                RE: Hard Drive Reformat

                Ohlen,

                No, great idea! Thanks.

                kenn
                TYVM :) kenn

                Knowing what you can achieve will not become reality until you imagine and explore.

                Comment


                  #9
                  RE: Hard Drive Reformat

                  hi ken:

                  i used a program called "partition magic" to re-allocate partition sizes on my new p.c.. the o/s is win-me so i'm not sure about win 2k. the cost was abut $70 CDN. all i needed to do was change from a 19gb drive c / 1gb drive d to 10/10. there were utilities to create different boot partitions as well. if you're stuck this may be a way you. a word of caution, a friend who referred me to the program lost power during the re-partitioning ... big problems. then he had to buy the partition fix program for about $350 to recover (most) of his data.

                  regards,

                  ed

                  Comment


                    #10
                    RE: Hard Drive Reformat

                    Thanks Ed,

                    I'll keep that option open.

                    kenn
                    TYVM :) kenn

                    Knowing what you can achieve will not become reality until you imagine and explore.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      RE: Hard Drive Reformat

                      Use Fdisk to check for partitions and status thereof.
                      efs

                      Comment


                        #12
                        RE: Hard Drive Reformat

                        efs,

                        I typed Fdisk at the c prompt and got the message, Fdisk is not an internal or external command. Appears as if it's not recognized in Win 2k Pro.

                        kenn
                        TYVM :) kenn

                        Knowing what you can achieve will not become reality until you imagine and explore.

                        Comment


                          #13
                          RE: Hard Drive Reformat

                          Hi Ken,

                          It sounds to me like you need to completely do your hard drive over. I
                          assume you hvae a windows startup floppy disk. Given that you do,
                          place it in your floppy drive and boot up on it. When you see the A:
                          prompt on the screen type FDISK. Follow onscreen directions to delete
                          all logical, extended, and DOS drives. Then create a C drive and make
                          sure you set the status to active. Now reboot on the floppy again and
                          be sure to select the CDRom driver (selection #1), then format the
                          hard drive. Now you are ready to load the OS, place the CD in the
                          drive and and change the prompt to "E:", then type setup and press
                          enter.
                          efs

                          Comment


                            #14
                            RE: Hard Drive Reformat

                            efs,

                            You are so full of good news and great cheer. Actually, I was thinking the same thing. I did a post on a MS Network newsgroup and one guy told me to look for the boot.ini file and delete any references to it. I found it via regedit in a folder called FilesNamedMRU and renamed it but that made no difference.

                            I searched the HD for that folder but windows search couldn't find it, even after I checked the hidden files to be viewed.

                            Unless another option pops up, I'll continue to backup fiels and the have at your suggestion.

                            Thanks,

                            kenn
                            TYVM :) kenn

                            Knowing what you can achieve will not become reality until you imagine and explore.

                            Comment


                              #15
                              RE: Hard Drive Reformat

                              This is not for the faint of heart. Typing formatC always makes my heart rate soar and blood pressure rise.

                              Comment

                              Working...
                              X