Once a year I format a friends computer and reinstall win98SE for him. It's clean up time again (as he puts loads of games on, downloads loads of rubbish and clogs up his system to a virtual standstill), and I am in need of a little help or advice. Can anyone tell me a way around this problem please?
When I returned the machine last year, it was running happily with 98SE. Now I find the guy has loaded over the top of it Win2000 Professional.
I went to format it, and it refused to recognise "C" drive. I have learned now that the system WAS running FAT32, but is now running NTFS. This is all a foreign language to me, but from what I can gather, to put 98SE back on I need to change the NTFS back to FAT32 somehow, so that I can format it and reinstall 98SE. I wish the guy had left it alone, but he thought he was doing a great job loading win2000 without help from anyone.
I would greatly appreciate any suggestions or help on how I can format it and return it to 98SE (and so would my mate).
Many Thanks in advance,

Graham

Others more experienced and knowledable will come but until then:

I think you need to re-partition this [single? physical] drive using either "fdisk" [on a Windows 98 startup disk] or the utilities software supplied by the manufacturer of the HDD [this is usually best] at their website.
Then format these partitions using the "format" command.

I suggest using more than a single partition.
Keep your C: partition as small as possible by moving things off to another.
e.g.
SWAP FILE [Control Panel>System Properties>Performance>Virtual Memory]
TEMPORARY INTERNET FILES [IE>Tools>Options>General>Temporary Internet Files>Settings>Move Folder]
MY DOCUMENTS [using "TweakUI"]
Outlook Express Favourites [using "TweakUI"]
E-mails [OE>Your Identity>Tools>Options>Maintenance>Store Folder]
All the data files, especially the big ones like wave and MP3 files.

Use small cluster size [4 kB] on the C: drive and big cluster size [32 kB] on the other[s].
Small files SHOULD use small clusters and big files big clusters.
[When you defragment look at how many little cells (clusters actually) are occupied by a typical single file. Ideally it should be about at least 4 and no more than about 10 roughly.]

Set up a system of backup and once you've built the software make a backup of that and keep it safe so at a future date the drive[s] can be re-formatted and restored quickly and simply.
That gets him quickly back to a lean & mean working system of software which includes all the prog's he needs.

If he takes backups as he goes along then his latest data can then be restored from these to bring him right back up to date.

The final result is a complete system of software including all his valuable data but without ALL the trash.

If all the valuable data which changes day by day is kept off the C: drive and you only re-format and re-store the C: drive then all this data remains up to date and untouched.

Sylvander is right. You can use fdisk using the "Delete Non-DOS Partition" selection. Or you can download the HDD manufacturers utility.

Either should get you where you want to go. :)

Before you reinstall Win98SE and if he has the Win2000 disk to use, you may want to think about using it instead. It isn't as game friendly as Win98, but it is much more stable and if this friend doesn't know much about computers, it may be worthwhile to use it. You can use the Win2000 CD to reformat and reinstall I believe.

Thanks for the help people, it's much appreciated (and much needed).

Sylvander, when trying to format, the system doesn't recognise "C" drive. Will it recognise it if I delete the partition, and create a new one? (it is a single drive - 30Gig). I think I can manage to create a couple of partitions, but untill I can get it to recognise "C" so that I can format it, I can't get anywhere.

Chhers

Graham

You have gotten some good advise:

Use the utilites from the hard drive manufacturer and re-format and partition the drive.

Make the primary partition Fat 32 and put the OS there and that's it. Use gost or some other software and make an image backup of the primary partiton on a CD. That way next year, you re-format and pop in the CD and your setup.

Use other partitions for programs/data and use NTFS for them and Oh by the way use Win2K.

Since I'm experienced with the setup I'm going to mention, I will go ahead and suggest it. You should be aware that it's not as hard as it sounds.

Note: If you run Fdisk and it reports No Fixed Disks Present, then you have a whole different set of problems. You should boot using a bootable 98SE floppy. Run fdisk and after you have deleted the existing partitions, create three partitions of equal size.

Format all partitions in FAT32, just so later on the guy can access files created by one OS while he's using the other one.

Install 98SE first, and on the first partition. Install 2KPro second, on the second partition. The installation of 2KPro will see that 98SE is already there and will create a boot menu that will be presented each time the system is booted, which will give a choice as to which OS the user wants to boot into.

Use the third partition for data files and drivers, etc. from each OS.

This setup works very well. Like I say, I use this setup every day. I can play all my older games by booting into 98SE and I use 2KPro for my work related stuff.

Cheers.

Hello mrshovelhands.

You said “Will it recognise it if I delete the partition, and create a new one?”

Yes it will.

This is a complicated topic that I don’t know enough about [please forgive and correct my errors], but:
1. Partitioning is closer to the foundation level than formatting. Even though your “format” prog cannot read this info the partitioning prog will.
I remember once I had a situation where my sons HDD had been formatted using a prog different to the one supplied with Windows. The “format” command/prog could not read this info, so I stepped back to the partitioning level, re-made the partitions and then it formatted without any trouble.
2. Partitioning rewrites the Master Partition Sector; specifies which partitions are Primary Partitions and active or not active [therefore bootable or not]; which partitions are Extended Partitions and have “Logical Partitions” [or drives] within them.
It constructs the “Master Boot Record” which [includes the file allocation table and] chains to the boot sectors in the other “Logical Partitions” so that all the [logical drives with their] file allocation tables link up to identify the precise location of all the parts of every file.
3. [I think] the formatting fills in the file allocation table with the location and size of all the clusters [which the files will occupy].

PLEASE, PLEASE, will someone who REALLY understands all this give us an authoritative explanation?

Thanks very much to all of you for this excellent advice. It has solved the problem nicely. I am now going for a lie down in a dark room untill the room stops spinning, and my headache passes.

Cheers :D

Graham

Just do it the quick and easy way. As you said you need to
do the annual clean-up of the harddrive.

The problem you have now is trying to buck the NTFS file system
with fdisk.

Go to the website of the hard drive mfg. and use the zero write
utility to wipe the drive clean.

Then you can start fresh and install Windows using fdisk.


Luck.


RD.

To put it simply, it is always easiest to install or reconfigure HDD's useing the install Utilities provided by the HDD maker as a free download. Each utility from each maker is different and usually only work when the system has one of their drives installed. Haveing said that, for me I have a generally fool proof routine I use useing a Win98se bootdisk:
1. Boot useing win98se boot disk to command prompt, with or without CDrom support.
2. At A:\ I type the following:

A:\fdisk/mbr (returns to command prompt almost immediatly, provided you pressed enter, ill assume you know enough to do this after each command)
A:\
A:\fdisk

I then use fdisk to view any existing partions and remove them. It is possible that a drive may contain both a FAT(32) partion and a NTFS partion and both would have to be removed.
once both are removed I reboot to the bootdisk again and run a:\fdisk again. This time I create a new partiton ,I always create FAT32 partitions, as it is the most commonly used and Win2k will use either type depending upon your security needs.
Again , I reboot to the bootdisk.
after reboot:
A:\format c:/u
I answer Y to everything and away it goes. It may take an hour or more to format and it will report any detected errors.
If things dont go as smooth as I have just described, Then your problems are much bigger than simply reformatting the HDD and are going to cost money if noone has messed with the hardware

Thanks once again to everyone.

This has been a most enlightening thread for me. Now I need a beer.

Cheers

Graham (from sunny Wales):cool: