ERROR DETECTED WHILE FORMATTING PRIMARY HARD DISK

[SMILECJ777]

I have tried everything to start up win98,, nothing is working. When I boot, I get operating system missing. I have rebooted from a boot disk, startup disk, diagnostic disk, recovery CD and Have tried to reinstall too. I have gotten to where its starting to reinstall ( I THINK?) and I get the message 'Error detected while formatting hard disk.
I also get Command.com missing.
I have also tried to do SYS.C wont take. I also get that the Parameter not correct.
Any suggestions (ie: HELP) will be welcomed with open arms. Thanks smilecj777

 

[SMILECJ777]

One more thing.... I also get unknown media .. cannot access drive... thanks again Smilecj777

 

[ifix1]

did you try changing your boot sequence so you can boot from the cd-rom? this works for me..

hope this helps.

 

[Kento]

Actually it would be SYS C: (add a colon and remove the period) But you might have a bad hard drive. Try running scandisk from dos and see if it'll run and if it finds any errors. To get there turn on the computer and keep tapping the F8 key then choose command prompt only from the menu and press enter. At the prompt type the following and hit enter: (note the spaces)

scandisk /surface /all

 

[SMILECJ777]

Sorry I did do the SYS C:... nothing... and I have tried to boot from the CD.. Ill try toget to a prompt and see if I can get into dos. THanks

 

[Guest_imported]

What's the history on this hard drive? Was it working before a crash or something? Did you get the disk new, or secondhand from a friend? Check that the disk is recognised in CMOS correctly, then try booting with a DOS system disk and run FDISK. Does that report an active partition? If not, try creating one, then reboot and try FORMAT C: /S and see if that works.

Let us know how you get on...


ROGER - GØAOZ.

 

[ifix1]

that was a good 1 goaoz,i forgot about that.. a couple months ago i bought a hd from a show and they deleeted the partition and left like that.. i forgot about that...that didn't make any trouble for me seeing how i always fdisk first,i never just format..seems to be a very trouble free way.....
welp, again good suggestion

 

[SMILECJ777]

OK... Is it a special disk that I need to Boot to DOS??? What prompt should it be at? If you could tell me exactly ... I can do =-)... The puter worked fine.. then It was turned on and all the sudden it came up with missing operating system. I cant be real sure that someone didn't mess with it. THanks again..for all your help.. crystle =-)

 

[Kento]

I showed you how to get to dos. Turn on the computer and keep tapping the F8 key then choose command prompt only from the 98 startup menu and press enter. Does the menu appear?

 

[Guest_imported]

Well if the hard disk is not accessible for some reason Kento, then hitting F8 unfortunately won't work...

A DOS system disk is a floppy disk with the basic operating system files on it which will allow the PC to be initially booted up to a DOS prompt ( A:\> ). You said initially that you had "rebooted from a boot disk", so all you need to do is make sure that this "boot disk" has the file FDISK.COM on it, and then run this programme after you have booted up to the A:\> prompt. Choose the last option from the FDISK menu (there will be 4 or 5 items to choose from). This will show you if the partition(s) is still intact, or if you have lost the lot.

Let us know how you get on...


ROGER - GØAOZ.

 

[SMILECJ777]

I can get to tht A:\> Then what? I typed in FDISK and FDISK.COM... what ever I type in I get "Bad command or file name"

 

[Guest_imported]

First of all apologies, as I said previously that the file you needed was called FDISK.COM - should be the FDISK.EXE file. However, makes no difference to what you were typing to action it...

The message you got tells us you've not got that file on your floppy disk! Assuming the disk you're booting up with is using Windows 98 system files, the easiest solution is to find another machine running Windows 98 and copy the file FDISK.EXE onto the floppy from the C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND sub-dir.


ROGER - GØAOZ.

 

[SMILECJ777]

O.K. I was able to put in the DC rom and it started to boot up.. then it said formatting ,, then error.. cannot formatt. press enter to exit.
I also was able to get into FDISK. and I didn't understand the options. I did the 2nd one.. but still couldn't get to windows.. THank you for all your help... but what else can I do?? =-)

 

[Guest_imported]

Well you may not be able to get to Windows... First of all you need to discover if the hard disk still has its partition(s) in place or not. The FDISK programme will give you this information.

After typing FDISK, you might be asked "Do you wish to enable large disk support (Y/N)....

Type "Y" for yes and hit the ENTER key.

You should now get a screen giving "FDISK OPTIONS", with maybe 4 or 5 menu items. The last menu item should read "Display partition information".

Type in the number shown against this option (4 or 5), and hit the ENTER key.

You should now see any information relating to partition(s) on your hard disk. There are 7 columns going across the screen as follows:

Partition, Status, Type, Volume Label, Mbytes, System, Usage.


Tell us what is in each of your columns.


ROGER - GØAOZ.

 

[Guest_imported]

This time starting it up I am getting an error message.
ERROR READING DISK DRIVE A:\