HD help

[nichan7]

Hello!

I recently received a hd from a friend. i have a old 8 gig running win98 and he gave me a 20 gig hd that was running winXP that's still on it. i tried to install the new hd, but my computer won't respond after the memory test. I want to format the hd so i can install win98 on the hd. any knowhow on how to do this?? sorry if its a newbie question.

Thanks

[Midknyte]

are you sure you set the jumpers right? did you try the system with the 20gb alone?

make sure that the bios is set to autodetect the new drive. if you have static entries for your old drive, your board will still think you have the 8 instead of the 20.

[nichan7]

thanks for the quick reply.

I'm trying to boot the system with the new hd alone. the hd still contains WinXP which he(my friend) didn't format (he gave me the hd as he install a new hd). as for the jumper settings, i think i have it correct. type 1 master?? I tried your technique and went to the setup menu and set my settings to pick automatically pick up the hd, but this time it takes me to a new menu and asks if i want to start in safe mode, safemode with network or the last setting in which windows was working in. I tried all the options it gave me and when i go through with each one the computer just hangs and freezes.

any other suggestions Midknyte??

[Midknyte]

so the system sees the drive now? from what I read, it sounded like it didn't even get that far before.

most likely, you will have to reinstall the OS. XP does NOT like to be moved from one motherboard to another. You can try to fix it, but i don't think it's worth the time.

You could always copy over your old OS using ghost, drive image, maxblast, etc. Make sure to remove the NTFS partition if there is one. Maxblast freaks out when it sees NTFS.

[nichan7]

Midknyte,

so there's no way i can format the hd on my system? and how do i go about removing the ntfs?? hmm i'm kinda lost... p.o.s winxp!!

i guess i can go to my friends house, reinstall it, format it and then put it into my computer... sigh......

[Midknyte]

take it easy. no need to get upset.

if you're gonna install xp anyway, just boot from the cd, and overwrite or delete the partition.

If you're not going to use xp, then the fastest way to blank out a hdd is to use zap:
http://www.storage.ibm.com/hdd/support/download.htm#Zap

download zap, put it on a bootdisk, boot the system then just type zap 0 (0 is your first hard drive). that's about it!

otherwise, you would need to go into fdisk and remove the partition. it takes a little longer that way.

[Ol'Tunzafun]

If you have a Win98 Startup disk just put that in and reboot. That will enable you to FDISK and reformat the drive for Win98. If you don't have one you can create one by going into "Add & Remove Programs" (in W98) and selecting the Startup Disk tab. You can get help on the disk at any time by typing "help".

[rmanet]

Originally posted by Ol'Tunzafun
If you have a Win98 Startup disk just put that in and reboot. That will enable you to FDISK and reformat the drive for Win98. If you don't have one you can create one by going into "Add & Remove Programs" (in W98) and selecting the Startup Disk tab. You can get help on the disk at any time by typing "help".

won't necessarily work - sometimes fdisk will let you delete a partition, etc. but you reboot and it's still there - that's why using zap is a good tool - I always copy it (it's a small file) to all my w98 and wME setup floppies