Formatting Question

[Alias]

Hello. Sorry if I'm posting in the wrong NG but I'm stuck (and it concerns
XP anway?)

I have two physical hard drives; Primary :20 Gigs (C and Slave:2 Gigs (D

I currently have WinXP Home on my primary (C and just junk on D:

I'm tyring to reformat my C: and put Windows 98 SE on it. I put in the Win98
boot floppy with CD ROM support. When I get to the prompt (A:>) and see
what's in my C:\ it reports the contents of my slave drive! (D.

The contents of my primary (C does not show up at all nor is it
accessible.

Any ideas? Would appreciate any help any can provide!

Disconnect the slave drive and try again.

Alias

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Hello. Sorry if I'm posting in the wrong NG but I'm stuck (and it concerns
XP anway?)

I have two physical hard drives; Primary :20 Gigs (C and Slave:2 Gigs (D

I currently have WinXP Home on my primary (C and just junk on D:

I'm tyring to reformat my C: and put Windows 98 SE on it. I put in the Win98
boot floppy with CD ROM support. When I get to the prompt (A:>) and see
what's in my C:\ it reports the contents of my slave drive! (D.

The contents of my primary (C does not show up at all nor is it
accessible.

Any ideas? Would appreciate any help any can provide!

Is it NTFS? If it is, it will be invisible to a regular boot floppy.

 

[pfermar]

as far as can understand, windows 98 and windows ME only can be installed, if
the hard drive is without operating system at all, if you have the windows XP
cd use that one to farmat the hard drive, when finish formatting quit the
intallations, and now you have empty hard drive, and start with windows 98

 

[DL]

Boot with the winxp cd, delete the partition, recreate, format, install

 

[User]

Hello. Sorry if I'm posting in the wrong NG but I'm stuck (and it concerns
XP anway?)

I have two physical hard drives; Primary :20 Gigs (C and Slave:2 Gigs (D

I currently have WinXP Home on my primary (C and just junk on D:

I'm tyring to reformat my C: and put Windows 98 SE on it. I put in the Win98
boot floppy with CD ROM support. When I get to the prompt (A:>) and see
what's in my C:\ it reports the contents of my slave drive! (D.

The contents of my primary (C does not show up at all nor is it
accessible.

Any ideas? Would appreciate any help any can provide!

 

[Malke]

User wrote:

Yes. According to My Computer it says the file system for C: is NTFS and
the file system for (slave) D: is FAT.

What is the workaround so that the floppy will see the NTFS (C so I can
reformat it ?

Boot with your Win98 boot disk, making sure that in addition to the CD-ROM
drivers it has Format and Fdisk on it (I've never seen a Win9x boot floppy
that didn't). At the A:\ prompt type: fdisk [enter]

The master drive will show up as (IIRC) a non-DOS disk. Delete the partition
and create a new one. Reboot after doing that work, still with the boot
disk. At the A:\ prompt type: format [enter]

How to Use the Fdisk Tool and the Format Tool to Partition or Repartition a
Hard Disk - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/255867

Reboot after the format, again using the boot disk. Put the Win98 install
disk into the CD drive. At the A:\ prompt type:

cd c:\ [enter]
C:\makedir Win98
cd d:\[to move to the Win98 install cd] [enter]
d:\copy Win98 c:\Win98 [enter]

After the copying of the files is finished:
cd c:\Win98 [enter]
Now you will be in c:\Win98
type setup [enter] and the Windows 98 installation will start.

Google search for "how to install Windows 98"
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=how+to+install+Windows+98&btnG=Search

Malke

 

[Abarbarian]

http://www.sysresccd.org/System-tools

Download this and burn it to a cd . Run it from the cd and you will be able to format your hdd to FAT 32 .

 

[Ken]

Hello. Sorry if I'm posting in the wrong NG but I'm stuck (and it concerns
XP anway?)

I have two physical hard drives; Primary :20 Gigs (C and Slave:2 Gigs (D

I currently have WinXP Home on my primary (C and just junk on D:

I'm tyring to reformat my C: and put Windows 98 SE on it. I put in the Win98
boot floppy with CD ROM support. When I get to the prompt (A:>) and see
what's in my C:\ it reports the contents of my slave drive! (D.

The contents of my primary (C does not show up at all nor is it
accessible.

Any ideas? Would appreciate any help any can provide!

My guess is the XP installation was installed on a NTFS partitioned
drive. If that is the case, the FAT file system from the floppy or
Win98 CD will not see it.

 

[User]

My guess is the XP installation was installed on a NTFS partitioned drive.
If that is the case, the FAT file system from the floppy or Win98 CD will
not see it.

Yes. According to My Computer it says the file system for C: is NTFS and
the file system for (slave) D: is FAT.

What is the workaround so that the floppy will see the NTFS (C so I can
reformat it ?

 

[Anna]

Hello. Sorry if I'm posting in the wrong NG but I'm stuck (and it concerns
XP anway?)

I have two physical hard drives; Primary :20 Gigs (C and Slave:2 Gigs
(D

I currently have WinXP Home on my primary (C and just junk on D:

I'm tyring to reformat my C: and put Windows 98 SE on it. I put in the
Win98
boot floppy with CD ROM support. When I get to the prompt (A:>) and see
what's in my C:\ it reports the contents of my slave drive! (D.

The contents of my primary (C does not show up at all nor is it
accessible.

Any ideas? Would appreciate any help any can provide!

Boot with your Win98 boot disk, making sure that in addition to the CD-ROM
drivers it has Format and Fdisk on it (I've never seen a Win9x boot floppy
that didn't). At the A:\ prompt type: fdisk [enter]

The master drive will show up as (IIRC) a non-DOS disk. Delete the
partition
and create a new one. Reboot after doing that work, still with the boot
disk. At the A:\ prompt type: format [enter]

How to Use the Fdisk Tool and the Format Tool to Partition or Repartition
a
Hard Disk - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/255867

Reboot after the format, again using the boot disk. Put the Win98 install
disk into the CD drive. At the A:\ prompt type:

cd c:\ [enter]
C:\makedir Win98
cd d:\[to move to the Win98 install cd] [enter]
d:\copy Win98 c:\Win98 [enter]

After the copying of the files is finished:
cd c:\Win98 [enter]
Now you will be in c:\Win98
type setup [enter] and the Windows 98 installation will start.

Google search for "how to install Windows 98"
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=how+to+install+Windows+98&btnG=Search

Malke
--
MS-MVP
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
Don't Panic!

User & Malke...
(Some of the previous responses to the contrary Malke is indeed correct when
he infers that the DOS FDISK command will detect an NTFS partition as a
non-DOS partition and the user can delete that partition and then create &
format FAT32 partitions.)

While there's nothing inherently wrong in the process Malke details re
installing the Win98 OS on the user's 20 GB HDD, is there any reason in this
case why the OP could not simply boot to his or her Win98 installation CD
(ensuring that the only HDD connected in the system is the one on which he
or she desires to install the Win98 OS) and simply install the Win98 OS onto
that HDD - in the setup process formatting the drive FAT32?

During the initial stages of the Win98 installation process the user will be
given an opportunity to boot from the CD-ROM and subsequently be given the
choice of (in effect) deleting the non-DOS (NTFS) partition, formatting the
disk FAT32, and completing the setup process from the Win98 installation CD.
Of course all data on that NTFS-formatted drive will be deleted and a fresh
install of the Win98 OS will ensue. I assume, of course, that's the OP's
objective.
Anna

 

[Bill in Co.]

Sounds like a lot simpler procedure, indeed.

Hello. Sorry if I'm posting in the wrong NG but I'm stuck (and it
concerns
XP anway?)

I have two physical hard drives; Primary :20 Gigs (C and Slave:2 Gigs
(D

I currently have WinXP Home on my primary (C and just junk on D:

I'm tyring to reformat my C: and put Windows 98 SE on it. I put in the
Win98
boot floppy with CD ROM support. When I get to the prompt (A:>) and see
what's in my C:\ it reports the contents of my slave drive! (D.

The contents of my primary (C does not show up at all nor is it
accessible.

Any ideas? Would appreciate any help any can provide!

Boot with your Win98 boot disk, making sure that in addition to the
CD-ROM
drivers it has Format and Fdisk on it (I've never seen a Win9x boot
floppy
that didn't). At the A:\ prompt type: fdisk [enter]

The master drive will show up as (IIRC) a non-DOS disk. Delete the
partition
and create a new one. Reboot after doing that work, still with the boot
disk. At the A:\ prompt type: format [enter]

How to Use the Fdisk Tool and the Format Tool to Partition or Repartition
a Hard Disk - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/255867

Reboot after the format, again using the boot disk. Put the Win98 install
disk into the CD drive. At the A:\ prompt type:

cd c:\ [enter]
C:\makedir Win98
cd d:\[to move to the Win98 install cd] [enter]
d:\copy Win98 c:\Win98 [enter]

After the copying of the files is finished:
cd c:\Win98 [enter]
Now you will be in c:\Win98
type setup [enter] and the Windows 98 installation will start.

Google search for "how to install Windows 98"
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=how+to+install+Windows+98&btnG=Search

Malke
--
MS-MVP
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
Don't Panic!

User & Malke...
(Some of the previous responses to the contrary Malke is indeed correct
when
he infers that the DOS FDISK command will detect an NTFS partition as a
non-DOS partition and the user can delete that partition and then create &
format FAT32 partitions.)

While there's nothing inherently wrong in the process Malke details re
installing the Win98 OS on the user's 20 GB HDD, is there any reason in
this
case why the OP could not simply boot to his or her Win98 installation CD
(ensuring that the only HDD connected in the system is the one on which he
or she desires to install the Win98 OS) and simply install the Win98 OS
onto
that HDD - in the setup process formatting the drive FAT32?

During the initial stages of the Win98 installation process the user will
be
given an opportunity to boot from the CD-ROM and subsequently be given the
choice of (in effect) deleting the non-DOS (NTFS) partition, formatting
the
disk FAT32, and completing the setup process from the Win98 installation
CD.
Of course all data on that NTFS-formatted drive will be deleted and a
fresh
install of the Win98 OS will ensue. I assume, of course, that's the OP's
objective.
Anna

 

[Malke]

User & Malke...
(Some of the previous responses to the contrary Malke is indeed correct
when he infers that the DOS FDISK command will detect an NTFS partition as
a non-DOS partition and the user can delete that partition and then create
& format FAT32 partitions.)

While there's nothing inherently wrong in the process Malke details re
installing the Win98 OS on the user's 20 GB HDD, is there any reason in
this case why the OP could not simply boot to his or her Win98
installation CD (ensuring that the only HDD connected in the system is the
one on which he or she desires to install the Win98 OS) and simply install
the Win98 OS onto that HDD - in the setup process formatting the drive
FAT32?

Because except in special OEM cases, the Win98 CDs weren't bootable. We
didn't see regularly bootable CDs until WinME.

During the initial stages of the Win98 installation process the user will
be given an opportunity to boot from the CD-ROM and subsequently be given
the choice of (in effect) deleting the non-DOS (NTFS) partition,
formatting the disk FAT32, and completing the setup process from the Win98
installation CD. Of course all data on that NTFS-formatted drive will be
deleted and a fresh install of the Win98 OS will ensue. I assume, of
course, that's the OP's objective.

You may have been working with only those special OEM Win98 CDs. The retail
upgrade/full versions (and some of the ones that came with prebuilt
machines too) weren't bootable. In fact, I don't think in all these years
of supporting it (still do, sort of!) I ever came across a bootable Win98
install disk.

Hence my instructions to go about the partitioning, formatting, and then
installing in that rather convoluted way. The reason I always copied the
setup files to the hard drive in a Win98 folder was that 1) installation
ran faster that way because CD-ROMs were so slow then; and 2) because doing
it that way meant that when you needed to update the system or add
something like a new monitor, or make other OS changes, etc. you didn't
need to go find your Windows 98 install disk. If the hard drive was
extremely tiny you wouldn't do this of course, but by the time Win98 came
around we were actually seeing huge drives of 6GB, certainly large enough
to hold the convenient extra files.

Malke

 

[LVTravel]

SNIP

While there's nothing inherently wrong in the process
Malke details re installing the Win98 OS on the user's 20
GB HDD, is there any reason in this case why the OP could
not simply boot to his or her Win98 installation CD
(ensuring that the only HDD connected in the system is the
one on which he or she desires to install the Win98 OS)
and simply install the Win98 OS onto that HDD - in the
setup process formatting the drive FAT32?

During the initial stages of the Win98 installation
process the user will be given an opportunity to boot from
the CD-ROM and subsequently be given the choice of (in
effect) deleting the non-DOS (NTFS) partition, formatting
the disk FAT32, and completing the setup process from the
Win98 installation CD. Of course all data on that
NTFS-formatted drive will be deleted and a fresh install
of the Win98 OS will ensue. I assume, of course, that's
the OP's objective.
Anna

Funny but I have never had a Win 98 CD boot a computer yet.
They all came with a System Boot Floppy that loaded the
CD-ROM drivers into DOS as most computers back when 98 came
out couldn't boot from a CD, only a hard drive or floppy. I
haven't seen a Win 98 CD, including the latest Win 98 SE
version with IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS and COMMAND.COM, which are
the system files in DOS, in the root of the CD. The only
files present in the Root of the CD are: SETUP.EXE,
AUTORUN.INF and README.TXT and none of these files will
operate without the operating system being installed, in
this case DOS. (Even Windows NT, which was the professional
OS then, had boot floppies to enable the OS to be installed
since the CD couldn't be booted.)

Malke's instructions are 100% correct. When I was
rebuilding computers for my organization (school with more
than 100 computers) I always created the proper partition
with FDISK and then formatted the hard drive with FORMAT
which were on the System Boot Disk. I then copied the Win98
folder on the CD to the hard drive and installed from the
hard drive. Actually made the install faster and if I
needed any later files for upgrading the system, they were
on the hard drive and I didn't have to hunt for the CD.

 

[Malke]

Funny but I have never had a Win 98 CD boot a computer yet.
They all came with a System Boot Floppy that loaded the
CD-ROM drivers into DOS as most computers back when 98 came
out couldn't boot from a CD, only a hard drive or floppy. I
haven't seen a Win 98 CD, including the latest Win 98 SE
version with IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS and COMMAND.COM, which are
the system files in DOS, in the root of the CD. The only
files present in the Root of the CD are: SETUP.EXE,
AUTORUN.INF and README.TXT and none of these files will
operate without the operating system being installed, in
this case DOS. (Even Windows NT, which was the professional
OS then, had boot floppies to enable the OS to be installed
since the CD couldn't be booted.)

Malke's instructions are 100% correct. When I was
rebuilding computers for my organization (school with more
than 100 computers) I always created the proper partition
with FDISK and then formatted the hard drive with FORMAT
which were on the System Boot Disk. I then copied the Win98
folder on the CD to the hard drive and installed from the
hard drive. Actually made the install faster and if I
needed any later files for upgrading the system, they were
on the hard drive and I didn't have to hunt for the CD.

Thanks for confirming my aged memory of this. It has, after all, been rather
a longish time since I installed Win98. I think I created a vm running
Win98 a couple of years ago, but my own Win98 boxen have been in Silicon
Heaven for a long time now. Goodness knows I installed Win98 enough times
so the procedure is still pretty automatic! You and I had exactly the same
technique.

I was so glad when I could move to Win2k for my own stuff although I kept
Win98 on a few boxen so the kids could play their games. Win2k was a really
useful OS. As for ME, we shall not speak of this again. ;-)

Malke

 

[Malke]

Thanks for everyone who replied! I followed Malke's instructions without a
hitch and now am posting this from Win98.
ps. my Win98 CD wasn't bootable. Had a really old copy from way back.

Excellent! I'm glad I could help. Please don't forget that 1) Win98 is
completely insecure and so you need to be extra careful with it on the
Internet; and 2) you need a third-party firewall and antivirus installed if
the box will be online. You'll need to look around for av/firewall programs
that will run in Win98. I don't have current information about that, so do
some Googling.

Malke

 

[User]

SNIP


Funny but I have never had a Win 98 CD boot a computer yet.
They all came with a System Boot Floppy that loaded the
CD-ROM drivers into DOS as most computers back when 98 came
out couldn't boot from a CD, only a hard drive or floppy. I
haven't seen a Win 98 CD, including the latest Win 98 SE
version with IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS and COMMAND.COM, which are
the system files in DOS, in the root of the CD. The only
files present in the Root of the CD are: SETUP.EXE,
AUTORUN.INF and README.TXT and none of these files will
operate without the operating system being installed, in
this case DOS. (Even Windows NT, which was the professional
OS then, had boot floppies to enable the OS to be installed
since the CD couldn't be booted.)

Malke's instructions are 100% correct. When I was
rebuilding computers for my organization (school with more
than 100 computers) I always created the proper partition
with FDISK and then formatted the hard drive with FORMAT
which were on the System Boot Disk. I then copied the Win98
folder on the CD to the hard drive and installed from the
hard drive. Actually made the install faster and if I
needed any later files for upgrading the system, they were
on the hard drive and I didn't have to hunt for the CD.

Thanks for everyone who replied! I followed Malke's instructions without a
hitch and now am posting this from Win98.
ps. my Win98 CD wasn't bootable. Had a really old copy from way back.

 

[Bill in Co.]

Because except in special OEM cases, the Win98 CDs weren't bootable. We
didn't see regularly bootable CDs until WinME.

Ooops, I had forgotten that, lol. Sorry 'bout that.
OK, so FDISK and format it first in DOS.

 

[LVTravel]

TO OP: Glad you got it working.

TO Malke, I actually had to pull out one of my ancient 98
CDs to verify before I posted. When I did it years ago, I
actually modified the AUTOEXEC.BAT file on the System Boot
Disk (SBD)_(floppy) to install the drive cache that wasn't
installed by default on the original SBD. For the life of
me I can't remember the name of the DOS disk cache program
but I do remember that it would fit on the floppy and
install which made the read of the CD for the copy to the
HDD much faster. DOH! why didn't I look on the CD........
It is called SMARTDRV.EXE.

Have a great one and thanks for helping all!

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

Dell and others did provide bootable Win98 cds because they knew that
booting from a cd was supported by their BIOSs. In those days there were
still computers that lacked that capability so the Microsoft cds were not
bootable and required use of the setup floppy.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

You were however correct anyway. There were bootable OEM Win98 cds, but
they were branded cds, not Microsoft hologrammed ones.