formatting problem

[bairdy]

I have on a few occassions formatted my hard drive and re-installed windows 98Se on my main pc. I have another pc which runs win98 which was installed as an upgrade to 95.
I decided to format the upgraded pc and install 98se on it but ran into a problem. The 98se would not install no matter what I tried. I am pretty there is nothing wrong with the 98SE cd. should I have re-partitioned the drive first before running setup?

Any ideas??

bairdy

[Mark]

It would help if you provided more details and clarify what you mean by "will not install". Are you getting errors and if so what are they? Or does the installation just stop?

Let us know.

[bairdy]

Yeh I guess it was a bit vague.
Ok This is what I did.
I formatted the c drive by using the command format c
and then waited while the format completed.
then at the dos prompt i typed in d:\setup
then the error message "cannot read from the drive" I at first thought there was somthing wrong with the cd drive but that seemed to be working fine. Then I checked the windows 98Se cd in my other pc and ran the set up on that pc and all seemed to be well. I then put the original windows 95 cd in the formatted pc and that installed fine. I then used the windows 98 upgrade to restore it back to its original condition.
Why would not the 98SE install on that drive?

bairdy

[truffeltje]

You have to use a start up floppy from win98
That will install the drivers voor the cd-rom on you formatted computer.

Greets truffeltje

[darrelld]

Did you use the win95 startup disc to format?
Also, when you use a startup disc D: becomes a virtual drive and your other drives get pushed back a letter, so if your cd-rom is d: in windows, with the boot disk it becomes E:. E:\setup

[Richard_Cranium72]

Use a Win98 boot disc, then--

1. fdisk
2. format c:
3. sys c:
4. setup (using Win98 CD)

The machine will ask for the Win95 CD or Floppies whichever to prove that you do own a copy of 95

The 95 boot disc don't have mscdex drivers for the CD-ROM

DrVette

[bairdy]

Thanks for that but what it it that prevents me from installing win98 after I have formatted a win95 disk?.

Bairdy

[Richard_Cranium72]

What are you referring to as a "Win95" disk ?

HD or floppy, neither should matter anyway cause as far as I know NO disk is either a Win95 or Win98.

You may have upgraded the system from 95 to 98.

To answer, as best as I know, installation problems like that are from->
1. Bad HD, which should have shown up during fdisk or format
2. Not doing the sys c: thingy

I'm sure there are other potential problems, but these are the only thing I can think of right now.

DrVette

[bairdy]

when I say win95 disk I meant a hard drive that has had win95 installed on it.
what does the sys c: command do?

bairdy

[Mark]

If what you're saying is that you formatted the drive with a Win95 Start-up Disk and then tried to go straight to installing Win98SE then that seems to be the problem. Everything in the other replies is correct but I will add that Windows is funny about how it likes to install upgrades. Here's an example. I made the mistake of formatting a drive with a Win98SE Start-Up Disk and then trying to go straight to installing ME. It asked me to prove I owned Win98 but would not accept the Win98 cd even after it searched the entire cd three times! Then I reformatted with the WinME Start-Up Disk I had previously created and then when it asked me for the Win98 disk it quickly verified it the first time. So the moral of the story is always create a start-up disk for your current version and use it for the format. And don't try to use the start-up disk from a copy with a different Product Key from the one you're trying to install because it won't let you do that either.
Hopefully, that brings some clarifcation to your problem.

[Imperion1]

I usually use the win98 bootdisk, boot with cdrom support, fdisk and format the hardrive, restart the computer, and then choose the option to boot from the cdrom to install windows. Only problems I ever have are if the cpu is overclocked considerably and using the sys c: thingy, because then windows always tells me that there is currently an operating system installed on this machine. Do I want to quit or continue with the installation. Always continue, after that no problems.

[Richard_Cranium72]

1. fdisk
2. format c:
3. sys c:
4. setup

fdisk basically draws lines or partitions the disk making areas "writable"

format removes old data and writes certain basic information to prepare the disk for use

sys c: transfers the basic files to the hard drive such as the CD-ROM drivers

Skipping any one will render the setup incomplete

DrVette

[G]

Dear Bairdy,

I wrote a detailed set up routine for using Fdisk and formatting a hard drive. You will find this routine at http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/Forum2/HTML/010933.html

If you require more details pertaining to MS Dos and its use, go to http://www.computerhope.com/msdos.htm

In addition, gain advice from the postings from these references.

I hope this will be of help to you, and anyone else on this matter.

All the best,
G


[This message has been edited by G (edited 12-04-2000).]