How to reset a HDD to one partition
I have a HDD which seems to have its partitions messed up. At this point, I want to just make the entire HDD one partition clean and ready to go. Is there a way I can do this with the Windows CD CMD?
Or what can be done? At this point I have some 600GB that is unallocated and DISKPART isn’t working to allocate it. Can’t even find it under partitions or volumes.
Note that at this point, I cannot get into any OS on the computer, and I have no concern for any data on the disk.
22 Answers
Is there a way I can do this with the Windows CD CMD?
Yes, attach it to a working windows system (or boot from a windows DVD and use shiftF10 to get a prompt and use diskpart.
The command would be:
- diskpart
- Select disk # (make sure you select the right disk!)
- clean
- create partition primary.
Clean will wipe the partition table of the disk. Make sure you selected the right disk first! Create partition primary will create a single primary partition filling the whole disk.
Note that at this point, I cannot get into any OS on the computer, and I have no concern for any data on the disk.
Then just boot from another drive and reformat. If somehow the Windows CD doesn’t work, try using the GNOME Partition Editor which is basically a Linux live CD that can handle all kinds of different formatting and partition needs.
