A friend asked me to format + re-install his old old machine running Win 95 (2.1GB HDD).

I took down all the details of his hardware first.

1. FDISKED - MBR,Delete Partition, Reboot, Create Partition, Format (Using FAT 32, i.e Win98 Startup disk).

2. Attempted to intsall Win 98 and got the error that a compression tool has been used on the HDD).

3. Repeated step one a couple of times, checking the partition had gone correctly incase i had missed something, but still the same.

4. Placed the HDD into another machine thinking it couldnt be a tool on the HDD as I've wiped it I thought it must be a tool in the BIOS.

5. Still the same error.

It seems there is info still on the HDD of a compression tool even after wiping it,

Anyone Help.
Many thanks.
(Just when you think you've an easy job that you can do with your eyes closed then znother lesson waits to be learnt).
http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/frown.gif

What has happened is in the past the HDD has become pretty much loaded with material and someone used the compression option on it to gain some free space. The compression option compresses all the data on the drive. To me it's a last resort effort. And the system slows down because the hard drive takes longer to search for data that is in a compressed state. Plus you wind up with the problem you have now.

Third party tools may help you salvage the Hdd or the HDD Mfg website. You could use the zero-utility.

IMHO I would replace the HDD. Something around 6GB would be much more benefical in this case.

Luck.

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......Indecision may or may not be my problem......
...... Kickin' A Rock....

[This message has been edited by ranchdog (edited 12-05-2001).]

You can try the drive manufacturere utilities there should be one ther to overwrite the drive with zeros ("zero-fill" utility), also when fdisk try to remove all the partitions...also make sure that the jumpers are set properly (master/slave etc).

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mjc
Links list:Computer Links (http://www.dreamwater.org/tech/mjc/index.htm)

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.

It sounds like you may have a low level tool installed on the hard drive, like EZ-BIOS or something similar to it. Try this:

Boot to a floppy that contains debug

Start debug by typing debug then type the following in:

f9000:0 l 200 0
a
mov dx,9000
mov es,dx
xor bx,bx
mov cx,0001
mov dx,0080
mov ax,0301
int 13
int 20
(Press enter twice at this point)
u 100 l 12 (This will print back what you have typed in. If it's not the same, the type q to quit debug and restart. You shouldn't see the last line you typed in, int 20.)
u (This executes the program)
q (This exits the program)

Now reboot the system and recreate the partition. Hope this helps.

BTW, I do have a tool that will write zeros to the MBR on any drive out there. I use it some cases when I have Linux installed on a drive and then install Windows on it. Sometimes Windows dosen't completely overwrite the really low level stuff LILO puts on the MBR. Which reminds of another method. Try this also if you want:

fdisk /mbr

Not sure if that will helps you out though. Best of luck.

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