MS-Dos with Me

[scienceguymi]

I need to F-Disk my hard drive because my family screwed up my computer. I have Windows ME running on a dell dimension l600cx. Since ME is such a bad O/S I want to wipe everything clean and install 98se. I made a ME boot disk and started up the computer, now I am in a startup menu but I don’t know what choice will bring me to DOS.

My choices are
-Help
-Start computer with CD-ROM support
-Start computer without CD-ROM support
-Minimal boot

can someone please give me instructions about how to F-Disk my PC?


-Thanks Michael

[Markoman01027]

Change the BIOS Boot Sequence to CD-ROM first, and then boot up into 98SE setup & remove the Winblowme partition and then install 98SE

[Doobie]

you dont need to fdisk. the fastest way is to choose start computer without CD support. After that at the a:\ prompt type

format c:\
confirm that you want to format

After thats done name the drive and and reboot your computer with the 98x cd in the dirve. Make sure your bios is set to boot up with CD. Thats it.

[scienceguymi]

I booted from the win 98se cd, every thing ran smoothly until windows 98se started instaling, a messagen poped up stating "your computer already has an operating system installed, which cannot be upgraded by this version of setup. you need to obtain the indows 98 upgrade" I think I need to F-disk the HD before I install the new O/Sl

[scienceguymi]

Doobie, i tried what you sugested with starting the computer without CD support. After that at the a:\ prompt i typed "format c:\" and got the responce Bad command or file name. i also tried "format C:\" and "format c" but got the same response

[XpXJ19]

The reason that it is a bad command is because the actual file that formats the drive is not on your disk. You need to make a boot disk that has format.com on it.

The way I always used to do it was with windows 98 "Create a boot disk" utility. It was located under "Add or Remove Programs" on the Control Panel, if I remember correctly.

Creating that boot disk does not include format.com, however, so just run a search for format.com and copy that to the floppy disk.

If you cannot access windows 98 I'm not sure what you should do, but I know that there are many web sites out there that offer boot disk downloads with many useful utilities.

[scienceguymi]

Ii figured it out, it was the wrong command. while I was waiting for a reply and working with photoshop the thoight of just typing "fdisk" instead of "format c:\" hit me. I tried it and it worked. thanks for alll the advice

-Michael

[Doobie]

Sorry I didnt get back to you in time but its good to know you solved it.