installing an operating system

[Guest]

I tried to take a hard drive that I thought was cleaned off, formatted, and
put it into a HP Pavilion 503n PC. Almost all the way thru at the part where
it finds the hardware and devices on your PC and loads some data, the last
part of the installation, there was a couple of error messages. I was loading
Windows ME from a burnt disc, that I've used many times over without any
quirks, that I've not paid anything at all for using it. Sometimes you get
stopped and told you have to contact a number and then give a credit card
number and pay 25 bucks or so. No, not with this disc, this works over and
over again. Anyways, I got thru the installation after many times clicking
thru the errors. When I went into BIOS I and changed the video from PCI to
onboard. After doing that, when I booted up the PC, I didn't get an error
messages so I figured that was it. I now think the error messages were
because there already was an operating system on the hard drive. When I go
into My Computer and alternate click on the C drive it says 29 GB used and 1
GB or so free. Is that possible, that there was already an OS loaded on the
hard drive and I loaded up Windows ME in a different folder or something like
that?
Also, I went into Device Manager and Other Devices was open, minuses. I
wasn't online. So, I figure it had something to do with the modem. I only
device I didn't see was the modem and with further checking up on this
problem I discovered no modem detected. It's an ancient Alcatel 1000 ADSL
modem, that I didn't have the driver disc for. I now do though after my
brother went there to the office and found it.
I would appreciate any imput from anyone.
Thanks, attilathehun1

 

[Guest]

HP usually sends it pcs with a 40 gb hd,so if 29 gb are used,then you
probably
do have multiple OS installed,xp usually runs on 10 or less,ME even less.
Try running FDisk on start up,format the hd reinstall the OS.

 

[Guest]

Yeah, I'll have to take it out, put it into another PC as a slave, then I can
format it. I don't think you can format a hard drive if it's been partitioned
into only one drive, for ex. C drive, that has an operating system already
running on it. If I'm wrong, please inform me. I've never tried to format a
hard drive that's been partitioned into 2 drives or more. for ex. C drive
10GB, D drive 30 GB, then format the D drive 30 GB of the hard drive and
leave the 10 GBs of C drive, which has the OS on it, alone. Is that possible,
if I had to guess, I'd say so? We're talking about the 40 GB hard drive,
which yes, you are correct about HP Pavilion 503n PCs coming stock with 40GB
hard drives. I guess you've done your homework. LOL
Thanks, attilathehun1

 

[John John]

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

If you don't have a W9x startup disk:
http://bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

This is a Windows XP newsgroup. You should post your Windows ME
questions to one of the Windows ME groups where you will get accurate
help for Windows Millennium Edition.

You can find a Windows ME group to post to here:
http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/list/en-us/default.aspx

John