Should I run Fdisk or Format 1st, using DOS to set up 8 Gig drive on legacy laptop for WIn98?

Question

Using an IBM drive on old Hyperdata model HB8603, ran Fdisk before and I don't think I set up partitions correctly, Deleted DOS Primary. Erased disk when win98 was corrupted, but could not install because legacy drivers were from win95, I have downloaded the original win95 on xp machine but am spending too much time! thanks

Answer 1

Fdisk is to be used 1st in order to set the partitions you wanna have, and then format to give them... format.

Answer 2

Boot-up your computer with the Startup Floppy.

You may have to "tell" the CMOS to boot to the floppy drive first instead of the hard disk.

Use FDISK to create a new partition on your new hard disk as follows:

If you remove partitions, you will destroy everything on them, or, at the least, make it very difficult to recover any data. I use Western Digital's WD DIAGS write zero's capability to take Western Digital drives down to "bare metal." This eliminates possibility any lingering, overlapping partition/boot track problems which sometimes crop up. You could also use FDISK to remove existing partitions on your old hard disk and then proceed with the following steps to clean-install Windows 98. Be absolutely sure you have a good back-up first. Don't trust just one tape if using a tape drive.

A:\>fdisk

Will produce the following screen:

Your computer has a disk larger than 512 MB. This version of Windows includes improved support for large disks, resulting in more efficient use of disk space on large drives, and allowing disks over 2 GB to be formatted as a single drive.

IMPORTANT: If you enable large disk support and create any new drives on this disk, you will not be able to access the new drive(s) using other operating systems, including some versions of Windows 95 and Windows NT, as well as earlier versions of Windows and MS-DOS. In addition, disk utilities that were not designed explicitly for the FAT32 file system will not be able
to work with this disk. If you need to access this disk with other operating systems or older disk utilities, do not enable large drive support. [this is usually not a problem]
Do you wish to enable large disk support (Y/N)...........? [Y]

Push the Enter key to accept the default [Y] for FAT32. You will get the following menu:

FDISK Options

Current fixed disk drive: 1

Choose one of the following:

1. Create DOS partition or Logical DOS Drive
2. Set active partition
3. Delete partition or Logical DOS Drive
4. Display partition information


Enter choice: [1]


Press Esc to exit FDISK


Press Enter to select the default [1]. The following screen will be displayed:

Create DOS Partition or Logical DOS Drive

Current fixed disk drive: 1

Choose one of the following:

1. Create Primary DOS Partition
2. Create Extended DOS Partition
3. Create Logical DOS Drive(s) in the Extended DOS Partition


Enter choice: [1]


Press Esc to return to FDISK Options

Again, press Enter to select the default. The following will be displayed

Create Primary DOS partition

Current fixed disk drive : 1

Verifying drive integrity, xx% complete.

Current fixed disk drive: 1

Do you wish to use the maximum available size for a primary DOS partition
and make the partition active (Y/N) ....................? [Y]

At this point you can press the Enter key and make the entire drive one partition, your C: drive, or enter N and make a partition which occupies less than the entire drive. If you have a large drive, you may want to consider putting more than one partition on it; i.e., make you C: drive 1-2 GB and the rest of the drive (a second partition) your D: drive. You will find that a smaller C: drive will run faster and take a lot less time to defrag. I leave putting more than one partition on the drive as an exercise for the more adventurous. Just be sure the partition for the C: drive is set active and logical drives are assigned to each of the partitions. You may want to experiment...

After creating an active partition on the hard drive reboot the computer to the Startup Floppy and format the drive as follows:

A:\> format c:

Do not use the /s flag with the format command. We do not want to transfer the system files from the floppy to the hard disk. Windows 98 will not install on the hard disk if it already has the system files on it.

Get a cup of coffee...

Good luck and thanks for the memories :-)

Answer 3

In addition to what Strick has stated, make a backup of all the drivers (for Win98, of course) the laptop, so you reinstall them after Win98 in reinstalled...

Answer 4

DOS as in actual MS-DOS prompt? Real DOS is 16-bit based, FAT16 is all it can do, 2GB per partition is max, so fdisk first.

Answer 5

* just a note Your OS is pretty old...maybe the answer is to get a newer system. Part it out on E-Bay save yourself the headache.