re: Partitioning/FDISK not working.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007 at 8:22 pm
Windows 98 Annoyances Discussion Forum
Posted by Ed
(741 messages posted)
I urge you to read this entire post through carefully, before doing anything,
and make sure that you understand it.
We are going to try (a) partitioning, and then (b) reformatting, your hard disk.
Because this will *destroy* all data on the hard disk, it is really an action of
last resort.
You will need a Win 98 bootable floppy disk (e.g. from http://www.bootdisk.com);
and you may need to add the FORMAT.COM and FDISK.EXE programs to this floppy if they
are not on it already.
Step 1 is to partition the hard disk. So boot to DOS. Then run the FDISK program.
You have to create a primary DOS partition.
At stage one, say YES to the screen that asks if you wish to enable large disk support.
(If you answer [Y] on that screen, FDISK will use a FAT-32 partition table, which
is the type you need!)
At stage two, the next screen that appears, choose option 1, "Create DOS Partition
or Logical DOS Drive".
At stage three, the next screen, choose option 1, "Create Primary DOS Partition".
At stage four, the next screen, FDISK prompts you as to how large you want to make
this partition. If you do not enter a number, it will make the partition as large
as it can. We’re going to make it the maximum size allowed, so just press ENTER to
continue. (At the same time as FDISK creates the partition it will make it Active.)
The partitioning process will take a few minutes, but you'll see a visual display
of progress on the screen.
And that's all you need to do to create a single partition that uses all the space
on your hard disk. So once the partitioning process has finished successfully, press
ESC to exit FDISK.
Step 2 is to use the FORMAT program to format the partition you just created
as Drive C: and this is pretty straightforward. At the A: prompt type this command-
FORMAT C:
and be sure to leave a space before the C. The formatting process will take a few
minutes, but again you'll see a visual display of progress on the screen.
You should now have a hard disk which is partitioned, as one FAT32 partition, and
that is formatted as drive C:, and it will now accept your attempt to install Windows
98 onto it.
You will need an installation CD for a *full* install of Windows 98; an upgrade version
won't work, because there's no operating system on the hard disk now.
Step 3 is therefore to put the installation CD in the CD-ROM drive and reinstall
Windows 98, using your Win98 install CD.
You will also need a valid Microsoft serial number. Do a Google search to find one
on the internet, if necessary, but there should be one printed on the installation
CD's documents.
The one other thing that FDISK can do for you is show you the current partition data
(i.e. the current state of the hard disk), by typing this command at the A: prompt
-
FDISK /STATUS
To see a more visual explanation of the FDISK program screens, take a look at this
site -
http://fdisk.radified.com
It explains in detail how to use the various FDISK options.
An alternative strategy is to zero-fill the hard disk.
Use FDISK to delete all the partition information. If you run FDISK again, you will
see that at stage 2 it offers you the option to *delete* the existing partition.
Do so.
Then use the command FDISK /STATUS to check that all partition information has been
*successfully* deleted.
Then use the command FDISK /MBR to wipe the master boot record clean (well, the bit
that it does wipe clean at least).
Then you need to 'zero fill' the disk. This is a process that writes zeros to every
sector on the disk. You get this program from the website of the disk's manufacturer.
So if it's a Seagate disk, go to their website; etc. There are 3rd party programs
that will do this, but the best way is always with the manufacturer's program.
You may need to download a disk utility program that has many functions, one of which
is writing zeros to the drive. It usually isn't a seperate program, so just download
whatever they offer by way of disk tools. The zeroing option should be in there somewhere
when you run the program. You usually need one 3.5 inch floppy disk for this step.
The error you've run up against is possibly being caused by rogue data on the disk;
so the zero filling process should eliminate the problem data, and allow a normal
partitioning to take place.
If you're not offered a zero filling option, use any tool that offers to blank, or
fill, or low-level format the disk.
(Yes, I know that it is in fact impossible to low level format a modern disk, but
some manufacturers offer tools that do something similar, to which they like to give
that description.)
Then (once the zero filling is done, which will take perhaps half an hour) go back
to my original instructions, and try again: partition the disk, then try to format
it as drive C:
My tip is that after you have used FDISK to partition it, but BEFORE you format it,
you run the FDISK /STATUS command again, to check the result of the partitioning.
Write down the information that this gives you, so that you can post it here if necessary.
Also, run the FDISK program (type FDISK) and check the partitioning information from
within that program, to make sure that the partitioning stage correctly marked the
partition as Active (the letter A is displayed against the active partition), because
you can't install an operating system unless the partition is first set as "active".
The partitioning step should have done this automatically, but it is best to check.
Until the FORMAT command has executed, and completed, the C: drive does not exist.
Any attempt to change directory to C: will fail, and the command DIR C: will also
fail, since no drive exists until after the formatting process has created it.
Sometimes you have to type the format command as -
FORMAT C: /S
instead of FORMAT C: so try this alternative if the other doesn't work, but if you
get into this step you will have a slight problem, as it almost certainly means you're
using the wrong type of bootable floppy disk!
At the end of the day, if you still can't format the disk you might have a faulty
motherboard.
Ed
On Sunday, October 14, 2007 at 7:15 pm, Daniel Dub wrote:
>I've done this many times, I even just read a tutorial making sure I'm doing everything
>correctly, I am, and I have been.
>
>My friend brought me a laptop recently asking to install Windows 98 on it because
>when he started the laptop it says "No operating system found" or something along
>those lines.
>
>So I enter a 98 start up disk and typed FDISK. There are no partitions so I create
>a primary, use 60% of the disk space, created the secondary used 40% (the rest)
and
>set primary to active, escaped out, then it says "MUST restart, must format AFTER
>restart"... So I restart the computer.
>
>Now usually I format c:/s now but it says something like "format is not compatible
>with drive C" (not exactly, I forgot what it said)
>
>Then I went into FDISK to check the partition status and it says "no partitions"...
>so it basically "resets" or "Doesn't save" the partitions I JUST made before restarting
>the laptop. (I've only done this on desktops, but I doubt it would be different
for
>a laptop)
>
>I've partitioned the drive about 3 times with split drives, then I tried it using
>only a primary drive with 100% space available, yet every time I restart the computer
>the partitions DON'T SAVE. I even exited out of FDISK and instead of restarting
I
>immediately entered FDISK and they were gone again. I appreciate any help anyone
>has to offer, thanks in advanced.
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 |  | re: Partitioning/FDISK not working. (Ed: Wed, Oct 17, 2007, 8:22 pm) |
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