Changing Boot Partition from NTFS to FAT Hangs Setup

• Microsoft Windows NT Workstation version 3.51
• Microsoft Windows NT Server version 3.51

SYMPTOMS

When you install Windows NT 3.51 on a startup partition (the partition that is marked active and boots the system) which is formatted with the NTFS File System, reformatting that existing NTFS startup/boot partition as FAT during Windows NT Setup causes your computer to hang after Setup initially reboots, but before the Boot Menu appears.

WORKAROUND

There are three workarounds to this problem:

• Run setup again. When prompted, select the startup partition (which appears now as FAT) as the partition to install to. The following message appears:

        The partition you have chosen is recognized by Windows NT but is
        unformatted or damaged. Setup will have to reformat this partition to
        install Windows NT on it.
  

        To continue and use the partition anyway, press C. Setup will
        confirm this again later before actually reformatting the partition.
  

  Select 'C' to reformat the partition. Setup reboots and your computer starts normally.

  -or-

• Use FDISK from MS-DOS 6.22 to delete the non-DOS (NTFS) partition before running Windows NT Setup.

  -or-

• Delete and recreate the partition using Windows NT Setup, formatting the newly created partition as FAT.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Windows NT version 3.51. We are researching this problem and will post new information here in the Microsoft Knowledge Base as it becomes available.