Cannot Create a bootdisk to format old comp :(

[cholla]

FaT_PHiL ;When you reboot without the boot disk or without anything in the CDROM drive does your PC say" No Operating System" or something to that effect?

I think thats what it should say after what has been done so far.If you do have an OS & it boots to it DON'T Fdisk it since you don't have an Windows OS installation CD.If you have an OS there is a way to try a "dirty Install" from inside Windows.So STOP here if you do.If that is the case post & I will give you some instructions for doing this.

Since you probably don't have the Windows installation CD that came with the old PC.

You are going to need  Windows full installation disk with the product key.Thats the legal way.

If you have a method to obtain a copy with the product key some other way it will work but I can't legally suggest that.

The Dell you have might or might not work to some degree.I had one of these for a Compac I used in my IBM one time that worked.The drivers were wrong for the most part though.Basically these are what are called clone or ghost disks.

The startup or boot disks have a mini virtual OS for lack of a better description.

With the Windows one you can Fdisk more than one partition even with FAT32 you just have to do it a certain way & reboot a couple of times.

The way to do this is delete all the partitions .Then reboot.Next create a primary partition .when it asks if you want large disk choose Y(yes).Then when it asks if you want max size N(no) then put in the size like 1/2 or 3/4 of the total size if you want more than one partition.Then esc & select to set the partition active.then esc & reboot.Now Fdisk again to create the other partitions Chose to create logical dos partitions & create one or two adjusting the size you want.

After this you can Format each one but you only want to do this with the startup or boot disk for the OS you are going to use.The reason for this is Format creates the comand.com& maybe the autoexec.bat & config.sys for that OS.

I think the reason it stops at 84% the BIOS may be the other 16% that seems like a lot but is the only reason I can think of for why it does't format100%.

[FaT_PHiL]

ya theres gotta be a conflict in size from what im trying to load onto the drive from the boot disk and the hard drive itself.

My current options are.. order a windows98SE OS cd from my cousins school.. or obtain it some other magical way ^^.. im open to pms lol

[Guest jeffwalker9999]

glad to get the harddrive partitioned and formatted

the misconseption about boot disks - corrected

you will need to get a windows 98se full install disk ( or other )

as the dell pc disk you have will not load as it is only for a dell pc

- sorry to say that -

you could try a "dirty install" but may or may not work

I really would not recommend that -

try to get full install cd-rom disk

i have aprox 470 megs of software that will work on an windows 98se pc

if you want these files install www.foldershare.com and set location to save files to on harddrive and autosync and via foldershare you'll get my files - i'll add your email to it in a few so you can access my shared files 

just for reference the sumsung disk did the format and partition

and so doing an format c: /s was not needed

and I'm still woundering why it errored on you -

but oh well it is formatted now and just await os