Fdisk Stupidity!!

[bodhi]

Hey,

Ive got a slight problem. My flatmate brought this really crappy old compaq computer home from work. It would easily take windows 98 and he just want to use it to do CV's etc.

Anyway, the hard drive is empty but has a 1Gb partition and a 5Gb extended partition. Fdisk wont let me delete them and just create on 6Gb partition. When i try and delete the primary it says to delete the extended first, and when i try and delete that it says i need to delete other stuff and blah blah blah. Ive tried every permatation i can and its just really beginning to **** me off!

Any suggestions about what i am doing wrong etc?

Cheers peeps.

Alan

 

[muckshifter]

What do you see when you "display partition information" ... option 4 on the main FDISK menu?

You need to delete the partitions in reverse order ... logical, then extended then primary/DOS until none are left. Then create a new primary DOS partition that is the full size of the drive. Don't make any other partitions as a 6gig is small enough.

Re-boot and format.

This little "tool" will wipe the drive table if you still have problems ... just unzip it put in on a boot floppy and type wipe 0 at the A prompt or wipe ?

 

[bodhi]

Cheers mucks, i tried to delete in reverse order, i used to use fdisk all day every day, but havn't used it for a while and thought i was just being stupid, but i think there may be a problem somewhere. It wont let me delete any of the partitions at all!!

Also, cant really get that programme cause i dont have a floppy drive on my laptop!! Damn computers!!

 

[muckshifter]

Don't have a Floppy Drive ... See, they aint dead, yet.

Try a CD ...

 

[bodhi]

Mate, i know floppys arn't dead yet, i put them in any pc i build, they only cost a freaking fiver!! Anyway, i didnt build my sony vaio laptop, but wish i had, cause the CD ROM is broken!! So im kinda screwed.

On a seperate point, sony are refusing to fix it under warranty cause im not in edinburgh and standing at the shop i bought my PORTABLE laptop from!!

 

[bodhi]

SO, any other suggestions boys and girls? It seems like it wont let me delete one until i delete the other, and the other way round!! Bit of a catch 22 and all that guff.

 

[muckshifter]

What do you see when you "display partition information" ... option 4 on the main FDISK menu?

 

[bodhi]

Hey Mucks,

This is what it says when i display the partition information.......................

Current fixed disk drive 1

Partition Status Type Label MBytes Sys Usage
C A Pri Dos Drive C 997 Fat32 16%
Ext Dos 5153 84%

Total disk space 6510 Mb.

What it is saying though is that i must delete the logical drives on the extended dos partition before i can delete the extended dos partition. But when i try and do that it says that all partitions are deleted!!! Grrrr, very frustrating mate!!

AL

 

[bodhi]

OOOPS, the formatting on my post didnt come out right, sorry mate, but im sure you can work out where everything is meant to go right?!

 

[muckshifter]

So, you don't know anybody that has a PC, with a floppy drive, that can download 'wipe' for you ... sad.

I take it that you have never heard of the 'Ultimat Boot CD' either.

 

[bodhi]

Eh, dont think i know anyone with a floopy drive, not until i get another office job!!

Nope, what is the ultimat boot cd?

Any ideas why fdisk isnt working with that drive?

 

[muckshifter]

ComCrap ... law unto themselves, they could be using a 'drive overlay', dunno without seeing it.

The UBD can be found using Google ... but then you have a busted CD drive.

Catch 22

 

[bodhi]

Yep, and there in lies the rub my friend. No CD or no floppy. Might aswell be sitting at a dumb terminal! Ive come up with an ingenius plan though. Gonna email the file to my mate who will put it on my windows 98 boot disk!! Woohoo!