Format Vista Hard Drive with Disk
 

I have a computer that was given to me and is no longer booting up properly. It's an Acer with VISTA installed. I would like to format the hard drive and start over with Linux.

Here's the problem. I don't have the original windows vista disk, I don't believe the computer even came with one, and no back up disks. Apparently this is the only way to format VISTA.

When I am in the command prompt here is what happens.

C:> format c:

The type of the file system is NTFS.
Enter correct volume lable for drive C:



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I don't know the correct label. Any ideas how to do this?

Searching on the forums I found this.

format c:/fs:NTFS/p:/

That doesn't work. I get this:

"Invalid parameter - /p:"

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I would appreciate any help with this.

What are you actually trying to do? You don't need to format the disk if you want to install Linux, the installer of the distribution you choose will do that for you, it will also partition the disk and format it with a filesystem more suitable for Linux.

Okay...Playing around I found out that the volume label was ACER. I am now formatting. I may have a small question later....I will ask if so. Thanks anyways guys!

Well, I've already began formatting. I can still install Ubuntu after I have completed the format correct?

If your formatting it with a windows filesystem (ntfs, fat32,...) you will have to re-format before installing Linux so that you are using a Linux compatible filesystem. Don't really see the point in formatting?

---------- Post added 05-24-11 at 03:14 PM ----------

If your formatting it with a windows filesystem (ntfs, fat32,...) you will have to re-format before installing Linux so that you are using a Linux compatible filesystem. Don't really understand why you are doing this??

I'm not familiar with any of this process, first time attempt, so I suppose I didn't know I had to do one particular thing or another. Well, now it is formatted...what do I have to format to for installing ubuntu?

Again, newbie, so any help is really appreciated in getting this POS to work without vista.

The Ubuntu installer will do that all automatically. Just boot from your Ubuntu CD, and when it comes to partitioning let the installer do the job automatically, using the whole disk.
Since you seem to come with a Windows mindset to Linux I recommend to read this: Linux is not Windows