emty hard drives help

[nek]

well I reformatted my hard drive and now I cannot get into it all it has is command.com and nothing else how can I get it so that I can re-install everything...can I copy one hard drive to another.. if so how do I do this? Thanks for all your help Ken

[Banti]

Did you backup or mirror your entire drive?? If so DriveCopy by PQ will do the job. Did you backup with another program? If so, explain.

If not, you need a boot disk to give you access to your cdrom drive. If you have a friend with 98 have them create a floppy with cdrom support (not positive that 95 will install with this). If you have a IDE cdrom e-mail and I will send you what you need.

If CDROM is SCSI...
Obtain win95 boot disk. Install scsi drivers on harddrive. Copy all files from install to floppy, and edit the autoexec.bat and config.sys to reflect the change in drive letters (i.e. c:\ -> a :\)

After CDROM support, insert OS CD and install.

These are basic instructions, if you could supply more info... we could give more help


Hope this helps,
Banti

[This message has been edited by Banti (edited 01-06-2000).]

[nek]

I have a 98win boot disk with cdrom support will this work okay the empty hard disk use to have win98...thanks for your help..I formatted the hard drive to clean out everything for a fresh start..I won't be able to try this for a few day's as work keeps me busy...once again thanks let me know if you think the 98 boot disk will work...Ken

[Susan]

The boot disk will work fine. Just boot to it and choose the option to start the computer with CD ROM support. From there say D:/setup or E:/setup, which ever one ends up being your CD Drive.

[Axel]

I had similar trouble on a system I worked with yesterday and finally got back into the drive.

Was it originally formatted to LBA and when you had the BIOS re-detect it, did you select "normal" mode?? -

Reselect LBA manually and you should be able to get back into it.

Another thing it might be is the jumper setting - was this the master and it's now a slave? - did you remember to re-set the drive jumper to either slave or cable select? - if the info isn't stamped on the drive label re jumpers - look up the drive on the manu.'s home page and you'll probably find the jumper settings.

[Banti]

Okay.

Questions

What does the error state... that you CANNOT install beacuse you HAVE fat32...or that you CANNOT install until do NOT HAVE fat32??
How big is the parition you are trying to install on?
You are trying to install on the primary master, right?
What is the exact error and when do you get it during the installation process (in the middle, during device detection, etc.)?
What is the partition set as now (fat16, fat32, ntfs, etc.)?


Tips...

remove the primary slave and set primary master to single drive setting
run fdisk from the boot disk to verify that it is not a non-dos partition
be patient... this to shall pass http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif


Please repost w/info

Banti

[This message has been edited by Banti (edited 01-07-2000).]

[nek]

Hello: it stops right after checking system it say's I have fat 32 and need to re-partition to fat 16 or lower..does this help? here is the hard drive info:Western Digital 36400 enhanced IDE hard driver.
drive Paremeters;13328 cyl.15.63spt.6448.6mb
MDL;AC36400_OOLC
CCC;C4 20 AUG 98
DCM;BSBBRNABOAAA
WD P/N: AC36400-OOLCC4
HOPE THIS HELPS!!! KEN

[Dave_H]

Ken,
You said the drive USED to have win 98 on it.
What are you trying to install now?
windows 95 or windows 98?
Dave

[nek]

well I set up everything good hard drive master clean hard drive slave tried to setup win98 told me it couldn't without re-partitioning because of fat 32 I don't understand Help!!!! Ken