Win 98 - Reformat Problems

[FSD_KY]

I'm trying to reformat the HD on one of my old PCs. Its a 200 MHz
Pentium w/ 48 MB RAM. I've got my system disk made and it assigns a drive letter to the RAMDRIVE and CD-ROM. I've tried to format c: /s from the system disk and the ramdrive and I get the message "insufficient memory to load system files. Format cancelled". Can anyone tell me how to proceed? Thanks.

[ZANEY123]

Have you tried just d:\ FORMAT C:

D being your HD.

[FSD_KY]

My hd isn't any where close to full but I finally used fdisk to delete the partition and then create a new one and then I formated w/ the system files just fine. The only problem is I reinstalled windows and started getting the same errors right away so I'm wondering if the hd is actually damaged.

[Cricket]

Hi FSD_KY,

What version of Windows are you trying to install on that computer?

:) Cricket

[FSD_KY]

Win98se

[GaryRouth]

What "same errors"? . . . then you really didn't re-install Windows yet, but started trying to - and then got the same "insufficient memory" errors?

If I've got the story right, see if this link helps:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;177864

It can't hurt to run drive diagnostics just to make sure: just go to the website of the drive's manufacturer & download their diagnostics program. It will allow you to create a bootable floppy from which you can test the drive.

Is that computer a major brand? If so, what make/model? Some have bios information on the hard drive, which make projects like this a big problem.

Best of luck & Happy Holidays
. . . Gary

[FSD_KY]

Hi Gary,

Sorry for not being clear. I decided to reformat because I was constantly getting errors in Win98SE...explorer shutting down. Defrag wouldn't run because of errors on the disk, I ran scandisk which said it found and fixed errors but defrag still wouldn't run.
Update:
I worked out the problem with insufficient memory by using fdisk to wipe out and recreate the drive partition then format c: /s. I reinstalled Win98SE with a brand new copy that I've never used. Within 15 minutes of the install being complete I started receiving the same explorer error messages in windows so now I think my hd is bad. Fujitsu doesn't have their own diagnostics but pointed me to ontrack.com/dataadvisor. I found out this morning that I still have a couple months warranty left so I'm having it replaced. Thanks for the advice. Happy holidays to you too.

[ZANEY123]

gotta love those warrs


post back if you still have the same promblems and/or to let us know how you made out

good luck

Zaney123:)

[FSD_KY]

Zaney123,

Got the new hd installed today. Everything was fine for a couple of hours then I started getting Explorer errors. I'm thinking now its RAM. After installing the new drive I downloaded a trial version of data advisor from ontrack.com. The system memory test failed. This is an old system with only 48 MB of RAM but it all shows up in the count at start up. Any time I've had a SIMM/DIMM go bad before, the total amount of RAM installed wouldn't show up in the memory count. It has 2 banks - a total of 4 slots and memory has to be installed in pairs.

[ZANEY123]

try this mem test also to see if it is bad.
http://www.simmtester.com/
WHat are the specs of the computer.

what make.

What do the errors say?