help deleting win98

[jackielee]

i need to erase my hard drive and start over.....can anyone help me with this? I have a win98se start up disc but i need a clean slate to use it.

[PrntRhd]

Determine who made your hard drive.
Go to that company's website and download their utilities.
Use the utilities to low level format, create a new partition, and activate the partition.

Another alternative is to download this:
Dariks Boot & Nuke
http://www.snapfiles.com/get/dban.html

[Sylvander]

Why wouldn't he/she just reformat the existing partition[s]? :confused:

Unless he needs to make the previous contents irrecoverable?
Or wants to make a different arrangement of partitions?

jackielee
When you say "start up disc", do you mean a Startup floppy?
Or the win98SE installation CD?

[jackielee]

I mean the installation cd. I got to a straight c-prompt and got as far as it asking me if I was sure I wanted to get rid of everything and when I said yes, it said access denied. After messing around a bit I found myself at the main windows file and manually deleted everything in sight but four or five things wouldn't go away. Now, of course, I can't open windows at all, I just get the c-prompt. Amateurs ! right?????? LOL Now what??????

[Sylvander]

What I normally do is...
1. Boot from a Win98SE Startup floppy "With CD-ROM support".
2. a:\>format c: [to format your c: partition, do you have any others?]

What you do next depends upon whether you want to:
a. Install from the Windows CD in the CD-drive, or...
b. [MUCH better] Install using copies of the Windows installation files on a partition [preferably other than c:] on the HDD. If you do this, when Windows needs files it will fetch them in an instant from the HDD, without asking you to put your Windows CD into a drive with the same letter as the one used during the initial install. That can be a pest, because that letter may no longer be available for a CD-drive, and/or no CD-drive now has that letter. OUCH! :(

But you may only have a c: partition, and [if so,] you may [if you're wise] decide to make some more partitions [how big is your HDD?]
In that case, you do as PrntRhd advised.
Does your BIOS handle the size of your drive ok, or do you have "Drive Overlay" installed?

We need more info.
Do you have an backups of your partition[s]?
Are you forced to begin anew by reinstalling Windows and programs?
Do you have drivers for your hardware?
Where?
Did you ever backup your drivers?
What about your data? [My Documents, emails, address book, favourites, etc]

[Sylvander]

Bling! :)
Just had a thought.

"i need to erase my hard drive and start over"
What makes you think so?
If you only deleted components of Windows, then you could [without reformatting or repartitioning] run Windows "Setup.exe" to "Repair" the Windows installation and not lose any of your programs or data files.

[jackielee]

thanks to all who tried to help me......i am soooo computer illiterate it's not funny. my son has a bachelor's in computer gaming and he has no idea what to do with it. Need it for work by next week so i am just going to get a whole new hard drive and start over. I had to do this because my pci card won't run off of anything less than win98se. thanx all......someday when i grow up i will be more computer savvy....lol

jackie

[ErnieK]

Jackie
As you want to completly wipe your hard drive you might be better (and cheaper) using FDISK. Below is PC GUIDES instructions on how to do so. Take your time and read them (Print them out if you need to to) then follow the instructions one by one. This will give oyu a clean empity drive.
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/file/progFDISK-c.html

[jackielee]

thanks for the info, erniek, but we tried that. everything seems to end up at an "access denied". it seems almost like our mr. gates knew that win98 was going to need help so he had the update created instead of letting folks wipe win98 clean. we tried everything known to man, and it was a no go. my fiance is picking me up a new hard drive today. the original hard drive wasn't very big to start with, so it's all for the best i suppose.

[Fruss Tray Ted]

Access denied??? :confused:

What is the exact message? It does not sound as if you are actually booting to the floppy first but are trying to reformat from Command prompt instead.

You will not be able to do it otherwise nor will you be able to install onto a new drive

I got to a straight c-prompt
Whatever happened to the A:/> prompt? That should be your first option after allowing large file and enabling cd-rom supports.

One thing at a time. We need to know what your pc is. If your fiance' buys a large harddrive it is a possibility your BIOS is not going to recognise it if your pc is too old. If so, you'll need softwares and or pci expansion cards to make it work and sometimes that doesn't go so smooth, right Sylvander?

And don't be so down on mr Gates. After all he was the one who made Blue Screens famous!!! :D

[korky45]

I agree with Fruss Tray Ted if you have been attempting to delete Windows 98 from within Windows 98 it cannot be done. You will have by now made your Windows system inoperable.

You need a floppy Windows 98 startup disk. Follow Sylvanders advice - get to the A: prompt and type format c: then follow the rest of his instructions.

[Sylvander]

"and sometimes that doesn't go so smooth, right Sylvander?"
Never have I heard anything so true. :(
Seems like I "tried everything known to man" today.
MaxBlast 4, Powermax, Seatools Desktop, Ranish Partition Manager, Partition Magic, fdisk, Simple Backup.
I finally zero-filled my HDD and repartitioned it using "MaxBlast 4" and that did the trick.
Restoring "Simple Backups" of C: & D: was easy and I'm back up and running and typing this from that PC.

Trouble is, the PCI Ultra ATA/133 IDE RAID controller card only sees 33 GB [of an 80 GB HDD] and so do all the various DOS partitioning prog's.
Speed has shot up somewhat though.
But I digress.
Perhaps this will give jackielee some consolation? :D