ok here goes....i went to boot win98,it got as far as the 98 startup screen...then it went black and said "bad command or file name","syntax error",and "could not allocate memory for pipe".it would still boot in safe mode,so i figured it might be a win driver prob...not the case.Now...the plot thickens,i decided to FDISK,turns out i can't because in order to delete the major partition,i need to type in the volume label,which is cryptic....meaning symbols you can't type from a keyboard.there goes that.well i bought another HDD and set it as master and the other as slave and used windows format...it worked but i can only use about 2 gig out of 20,for some reason the rest isn't there....to be more specific....if i click on the properties of D drive it says it is a 514 GIG capcity,lol....and windows is taking up half.....???????????how do i get it cleaned out??????? or at least repartition????

You can run this Debug Script (http://www.firmware.com/support/bios/hdclear.htm) to clear the partition sector, then run fdisk again.
Debug is a DOS program that should be in the utilities directory that is created when you boot with a Startup disk.

I don't know if the corruption was caused by a virus, or if the hard drive may be going bad, but if the drive recovers, run an antivirus program in case you have infected floppy disks.

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reido@my-deja.com

Friends don't let friends install Windows ME

Here's what I would do......assuming you dont want to try to save any data on the old drive: Do a "Low-Level" format on the drive (you can get the program from the web site of the mfg. of the HD in question. By doing a low level format you will also erase the volume lable and any boot sector virus(if there is one). Then you can run fdisk on it to see if it is a bad drive (if the drive is OK....you had a virus).

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When all else fails...I'm a heck of a parts swapper!

thanx, i will try both