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What is disk partitioning

Posted By : Student of Katharine Gibbs School - New York on July 21, 2003

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I tried to upgrade my computer to windows 2000 from windows 98. the upgrade was ok except it did not recognize my modum or my monitor or my sound card or my keyboard or my printer/scanner/copier. It also told me that I hade a 2G hard drive. It has always been 17g. I tried to to return to windows 98 and to restore all of the original programs to the computer. it won't work. it sent me to a FDISK dos function and I saw that the hard drive had been particioned in to two or three sections ...... I obviously don't have a clue what I am doing with it and have decided that I never should have tried this.....My friends think this is funny....it isn't. Can you help me ? or at least tell me what to do next? I really don't want to have to buy a new computer

This question was answered on July 21, 2003. Much of the information contained herein may have changed since posting.


Don't worry no need to panic You will NOT have to buy a new computer Nothing is broken hehe. Seems like you installed windows 2000 on a 2 gb partition Which means you most likely still have Windows 98 on your system.

Now you have to decide what you want to do.

First off you have to make sure you have the Windows 2000 Upgrade disk NOT the full install If you are using the full install it will delete all your files off your computer and you will start from scratch Microsoft does support upgrading from Windows 98 to Windows 2000 Professional It just gets a bit complicated with the File system Because Windows 98 uses FAT32 file system and Windows 2000 uses NTFS or FAT32 So make sure when you upgrade you use windows FAT32 so you have a better chance of not loosing any files.

If you are willing to loose all of your files you could go back to Windows 98 by using one of two methods You can use the recovery disk that came with your computer What this disk does is erase everything on your hard drive and install all the programs back on as if you bought it out the store Second method would be using a Windows 98 boot disk and deleting the partitions Once again this will erase everything on your computer You can find some tutorials on line on using FDISK Then once that is done you install Windows 98

As far as the drivers go with Windows 2000 not detecting your drivers you can easily get those back as long as you still have the software for it that came along with the computer and the printer/scanner/copier Once you get online you do a windows update and it should get all other drivers needed.

I hope you found this useful.

Good luck :)

- stanley alexander

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Posted by Student of Katharine Gibbs School - New York on July 21, 2003

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