Can't Format

[Cntcomplain]

I'm Working on an e-maching 500a that came pre-loaded with windows 98 SE. Someone put Windows 2000 on it. The PC only has 64mb of ram(which I've got more ordered), but I would like to go back to Win98SE.

I put in the restoration CD and booted the computer and had the options to format hdd and install Windows or to start-up in DOS mode.

The hdd didn't format when I tried it twice. It flashed up a few pages of errors saying that it couldn't find certain folders(it was going so fast I couldn't read them). Then it said that installation was complete and to restart, but nothing had changed.

I tried from DOS mode and tried to Format C: /s from the A prompt. I also tried to boot it from a Windows 98SE start-up disk and either way I can't get it to format. It says invalid drive specification.

I'm not a genius at this by no means. It's been a couple of years since I last did this kind of thing with a PC.

Is there anyway that I can revert back to the previous OS without going through the trouble of formatting the hard drive? The restoration will not work no matter what I choose.

Thanks for your time.

Chris

 

[edfair]

You probably will end up not only formatting but running fdisk to change the file structure of the drive.
Usual case is to run fdisk and delete the partitions/logical drives then create the partition again.
Easiest to do it with the SE EBD under DOS. Or possibly to use FDISK to remove the previous and let the install take care of making the new.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[diogenes10]

I have never used a system restore disk, but based on comments I've seen here, I think they are dependent on a separate area of the hard drive, possibly a separate partition. I have also seen here comments that 2K is a better os than 98. If the person doing the 2K installation on your machine had that thought process, then they may have used fdisk and completely redone the hard drive because they never wanted to see 98 again. If that is the case, then there is probably no way your restore cd is going to work, at least to restore files from the hard drive. And that would probably explain the missing file messages that you got.

If fdisk would show you that the emachines restore partition is still there, you might be able to use a win98 fdisk and repartition and reformat just the win2k partition and then try your restore disk again. If the restore partition is gone, then I think you are left with edfair's procedure of fdisk and reformatting the whole drive.

If you do that, you might also consider two partitions, one for the os and program installs and the other for data.

 

[vacunita]

The Problem is most likely that when Win2k was installed the file system was changed from FAT32 to NTFS, for Win2k. The Win98 Installer will not be able to see the NTFS partition and hence wil not be able to format it.

You'll have to boot from a floppy, and run fdisk instead of foirmat, so you can delete all partitions, and reformat them in FAT32. As Win98 cannot see NTFS partitons.

run FDISK and remove any and all partitions, and reboot. run FDISK again and create the partitions again and format them fat32. then you can run the installer from the CD.



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Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[Cntcomplain]

Thanks, that makes a lot of sense. I don't know why I didn't try fdisk in the first place.

Since it's Windows 2k on the pc now, can I still use the windows 98 boot disk or do I need to create a 2k start-up disk?

Probably doesn't matter, figured I'd ask before I tried.

Thanks,
Chris

 

[diogenes10]

I would think since you are wanting to go back to win98 that you would want to use the 98 disk. You definitely would want to use the 98 disk for formatting and installing system files. I don't know if there are differences in the fdisk partitioning program between the two op systems.

 

[vacunita]

Use a Win98 boot disk, and run fdisk first to delete all partitions. And then recreate them.

----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[Cntcomplain]

Thanks, Worked Perfectly. I was able to boot up in DOS mode straight from the recovery CD and run fdisk and then format and install Win98se.

 

[vacunita]

Glad you got it sorted out.

----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.