format hard drive. Please help.

K

kevotx10

New Member
how's it goin everyone? I'm tryin to format a hard drive for the first time ever and I don't know how to get out of windows so that I cam do it from DOS. Does anyone know how i can do that or another way to reformat my hard drive. My ultimate goal is to install windows 95. I have an install CD, just need to know how to get it on there. Thanks ahead of time for any help.
 
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easiest way, i think, would be to make yourself a 98 boot disk and boot into dos. format from there.
 
thanx for the help. this is my first time to ever do anything like this so i don't really know what you mean by boot to the disk or how to get an fdisk or what it really is for that matter. let me know how to go about all of those if possible. thanks again.
 
use the link stranglhold gave you. download the file you need and put it on a floppy (A:\) disk. reboot your system with the floppy in the drive (make sure 1st boot device is set to floppy in your bios). at the command prompt, you can type fdisk and follow the directions to remove and create new partitions. format when your done and install your windows 95.
 
if your nto sure about how to get to bios its usually f1, f8, f10, f12, or esc..... ive even heard of it being f2
hit the right key during boot up, it usually says as the pc is booting
 
well i didn't make it too far. i was able to get to the bios screen but when i put the floppy in it gave me this.

Non-system disk or disk error
Replace and strike any key when ready.

I tried to use the windows 98 OEM and the DOS 6.22 downloads and got the same response on both. Any ideas? In the mean time i will try the other downloads to see how the fair. thanx
 
check to make sure the disk is good. haven't used a floppy in a long time, and last time i did, i went through 2 or 3 before i found one that still worked properly. i guess they went bad from sitting too long.

another thing you might wanna try, someone confirm this i'm not sure (again, it's been a long time), shouldn't you hold down control during boot for the menu to come up?
 
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