Sister PC problems...

PcFreak14

New Member
some progress,but not enought =[
okay heres whats up . I did everything with floppy...deleted the files that werent needed and added the fdisk.exe
put it in her pc and booted. it came up and idid what u said, deleted the old partation and created a fat32 one, right?
then after i exited and went to format with
"format C; /s it didnt work, i think it kept saying invalid
so im stuck
thanks sooomuch for helping
let me know what to do next
thannks
 

PC eye

banned
You used the ";" semicolon instead of the ":" colon when entering the command. When entering a commend in dos you have enter it exactly letter or character as it is spelled. When at the prompt you type "C:" and press the enter to change to the C drive. But the /s is merely an optional switch to save one step there. You can easily type "format C:" and later type "sys C:" to transfer the dos system files to root of the hard drive.

Once that is done you can boot to dos with the drive. To verify that the dos files are there after using the "sys c:" command just "C:" and press enter then type the directory command that lists all files with "dir/w *.*" and press enter. That will also show the total amount of drive space available in dos.
 

PcFreak14

New Member
sorry i havent got back to you ive been working, well i just tryed the
format C:
and i get the message
Invalid drive , orformat not supported
I nust have did something wrong
 

PC eye

banned
When you finished creating the new partition with the fdisk utility did you reboot the system? Before a reboot you will have to re-enter the fdisk utility and choose option #4 to verify that the drive was actually partitioned and ready to be formatted. Upon rebooting with the floppy then retry the format C: /s command or format C: /q for quick format. If you use that then you will need to use the sys C: command afterwards.

What make and model is the drive? The dos command is correct there. Once the drive is formatted you may want to run "scandisk /all" at the dos prompt to see if the drive is not seeing a problem with bad sectors. A complete list of dos commands can be reviewed at http://www.computerhope.com/msdos.htm The list of dos commands for formatting a drive for 98 are seen at http://www.computerhope.com/formathl.htm#03

The first thing to be sure is that the drive is a stand alone and that you have unplugged the other drive. If you still continue to see error messages that would point at one of two things; either you have to move the jumper from the master setting to cable select as often seen in prebuilt systems or you possibly got a bad drive. Make sure the end connector is what is plugged in on the primary ide cable and the other drive you mentioned is completely unplugged from either that or the secondary and power.
 

PcFreak14

New Member
well i rebooted and entered fdisk and the only options that show are
1)Create partition
2)Delete partition
3)select bootable partition
there no number 4

*also up it shows
No. 1
Drive C:
Start 0
End 1022
MB 8024.6
Status N
Type PRI DOS FAT32

The hard drive is a Western Digital 80GB EIDE hard drive
8MB CACHE/100MB/s
 

PcFreak14

New Member
well i though maybe the problem could be that i was useing a cd burner as my cd rom , which maybe can be causing it to be a problem, so i switched to the oem cd rom and left the burner disconnected. and i tryed a diffrent HD , a20GB one. well i used fdisk on it and deleted and created a new partition, then did a format C: and it formatted, i was going crazy to see progress taking place. so i tryed the burned 98se disc and it didnt work. so i poped in a burned copy of Xp home ed. and it ran but when it came to the one part in setup after you agree its saying i need a windows98 disc or windows 2000 disc, i guess to show verification, because theres no windows os files. so my sister has no idea what she did with my oem 98se disc that i left in there a while back, so i guess im outta luck till i get either a REAL 98se disc or windows2000? My friend has a gateway 2000 recovery and reinstalliton disc from this pc that im tryin to get xp on.. should i ask him for it..will it work
Thanks a million PCeye this is sooo frustrating

Thanks your pc troubled friend, steve=]
 

PC eye

banned
You could always go for a full install disk and save a lot of headaches. You can get a full version of Home or Pro editions online for under $90 even less at this late date. I hope the new drive isn't a reject. But remember to cable select if you had it mastered on the end of the cable.
 

PcFreak14

New Member
well igot windows xp home edition half way installed and i got to the part asking for the product key and the one i have that came with the torrent i downloaded isnt working..it keeps saying invalid. what should ido?thanks
 

Jet

VIP Member
Get a genuine copy of Windows. Period. We are not here to help you do something illegal.
 

PcFreak14

New Member
Well guys im proud to announce that i had other pc towers layin around and parts so i threw a setup together and now i got my sister a pc running windows xp home edition, andi still have the other pc running 2000,, im soooooo happy!

** I would especially like to thank PCeye for all his help and contributions to this pc terror nightmare. I really appricate the time and help and so does my sister
THANKS again to PCeye and everyone else

Steve
 
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