# win 98 reformat gone bad :(



## sweetcheekies (Aug 23, 2001)

Okay i am back but this is not good  I TRIED to reformat my other computer which runs off of win98SE or use to should i say.

I did a start up disk etc.. it checked out fine.. did the reformat thing.. found step by step instructions here http://tech.jmwebdesigns.com/software/expert/print/reformat.html. I did what it said to totally but now. I am at the point of where i insert my start up disk and then my cd rom and start my computer with cdrom support
it says no drives found aborting installation then it goes and does a bunch of PCI bus scans. about 5 or so. then it says diagnostic tools were successfully loaded to drive f device drive not found 'MSCD001' no valid cdrom device drives selected.

what the heck does all the mean and is there any hope for my computer?

sweet


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## john1 (Nov 25, 2000)

Hi,

i think that means it cant find the CD unit.

is this where you started?:

http://tech.jmwebdesigns.com/software/expert/reinstallwin.html

John


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## sweetcheekies (Aug 23, 2001)

no here is where i started
http://tech.jmwebdesigns.com/software/expert/print/reformat.html

what do i do now?

Sweet


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## john1 (Nov 25, 2000)

well i had a bit of a look thru that,
i notice they didnt make much of the space
after format c:
and before /s

i presume you did leave a space ?


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## sweetcheekies (Aug 23, 2001)

okay also i have another hard drive on that computer it is partitioned off into two sections.. they are ( or were ) d and e. can i do anything with those to get on? or no cause i wiped out c? 

Sweet


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## sweetcheekies (Aug 23, 2001)

i am pretty sure i did. does that make a huge difference if i didnt? this is not good.. okay would this be a solution.. i have win xp on this computer. can i make a start up disk of it then install win xp on that computer? would that allow me to get on the puter?

Sweet


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## john1 (Nov 25, 2000)

can you get to the C:\> prompt?

(or have you changed your mind to XP now?)


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## sweetcheekies (Aug 23, 2001)

i can get the c:> prompt no problem if ur going to suggest something please do so step by step lol or i will be lost 

thanks for the help so far.. 


i would rather stay with win 98se for the kids computer. 

but if all else fails i can go to winxp

Sweet


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## john1 (Nov 25, 2000)

Yes, dont worry it will be pretty basic, else i will
get lost too.

At the C prompt type:Type:

FORMAT C: /S and then hit Enter,

make sure theres a space after C:
because the system looks for that space,
as a separator, its part of the instruction.

You might find thats all you need
to get back on track.


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## sweetcheekies (Aug 23, 2001)

okay now when i try that it says bad command or file name?


Sweet


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## Mosaic1 (Aug 17, 2001)

I would guess that you might need a special driver for your CD Drive and the message is no valid CD Drivers selected.

The driver on the bootdisk is a generic one. It doesn't work for all CD Drives.

First, get a new bootdisk to be sure the driver is not corrupt.

If no joy, you need to get the make and model of your CD drive. Then you have to find the Dos drivers and download them.

It's late and I am about to sign off. But that's where I would start.


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## sweetcheekies (Aug 23, 2001)

uh oh uhmmmmmmm okay but how do i get another bootdisk?

for one 


two

if i cant get into my computer how do i find out the make and model of my cd drive? 


Help !!!!!!! ( okay wont panic yet ) 

Sweet


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## john1 (Nov 25, 2000)

I think Mosaic may have left for tonight.

Bad command?
Mmmm.

Check your spelling first,

format
(space)
C:
(space)
/s

All on one line of course,

Sorry for the delay, smileys got in the way!!


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## sweetcheekies (Aug 23, 2001)

no luck i still get bad command



no idea man this sucks.. lol win xp maybe looking better for that computer.. hey if i do install xp can i go back to win 98? I am just thinking to save u time helping me with my screw up  

Sweet


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## john1 (Nov 25, 2000)

ive just been looking through that page again,
at the top it says how to print it.

Yes i did send a reply before, but i wiped it
cos the smiley got in the way.

You shouldnt be getting 'bad command'

Could you type 'dir' at the prompt
and tell me roughly what you get.
you should get about twenty or so files,
a basic dos set.


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## sweetcheekies (Aug 23, 2001)

okay there is nothing there basically .. this is what is says

volume in drive c has no label
volume serial number is OC25-IDF6
DIRECTORY OF C
COMMAND COM 
1 file 93,890 bytes
o dir 24,469, yada yada lol byes free


that is all there is 


Sweet


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## john1 (Nov 25, 2000)

Hi,

ive just looked on my dos, its not twenty or so
theres just over 120 files on mine.

so expect about that.


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## sweetcheekies (Aug 23, 2001)

then that means there is a big uhoh in mine right?


man o man i hate computers lol 


Sweet


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## john1 (Nov 25, 2000)

o dear that doesnt sound right at all.

i will have to find some help.


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## Rollin' Rog (Dec 9, 2000)

Try creating a boot disk using one of the Win98SE ones here>

http://www.mirrors.org/archived_software/www.bootdisk.com/original.htm

Download and execute it to install its files to a clean, formatted floppy.

Watch the screen when it boots to see what letter gets assigned the CD-Rom drive, typically it will be one higher than normal. Then insert your CD-ROM and enter:

x:\setup

where x is the letter of your CD-ROM


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## john1 (Nov 25, 2000)

Hi rollin' Rog,

What about the Dos?

that doesnt look right to me


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## Rollin' Rog (Dec 9, 2000)

I'm not sure, but I think that's the result of the format c: /s run

Might actually be better to start over and do format c:

without the /s switch.


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## john1 (Nov 25, 2000)

maybe but that wont put the dos back


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## john1 (Nov 25, 2000)

she is in two minds as to putting xp on it

i dont think xp needs dos

but it will need the CD unit to work


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## john1 (Nov 25, 2000)

i always thought a format left you with a workable dos


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## sweetcheekies (Aug 23, 2001)

okay that didnt get me as far as my own boot disk did.. i got cant find device "banana" instead of MCSD001 


now what? maybe i downloaded the wrong driver i will try the OEM version one 


Sweet


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## sweetcheekies (Aug 23, 2001)

okay doing the other boot disk OEM version i got just as far with the exact same results as my first attempt any more ideas?

HI ROLLIN thanks yet again for trying to help me out lol


John,,, Rollin has help me tons on here.. and is use to all my major screw ups.. or if he isnt he should be by now lol


Sweet


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## Rollin' Rog (Dec 9, 2000)

It will help if you copy out the full, exact error message you are getting. And just exactly when it is occuring. The boot floppy should contain all the necessary CD-Rom drivers for any recently manufactured system.

And just to make sure (I've seen people think they can just download those files directly to a floppy), are you downloading to the hard drive first, and then double clicking an installation program to automatically install the files to the clean, formatted floppy?


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## john1 (Nov 25, 2000)

it occurs to me,
that if you made a 'startup' floppy from that machine
it may have the CD drivers on it.


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## sweetcheekies (Aug 23, 2001)

okay one sec going to do it again and will try to write down step by step ( in case i missed something earlier ) what exactly it says 

brb


and yes i did.. to make sure how do i format a disk? I will do it to make sure i got it right


Sweet


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## Rollin' Rog (Dec 9, 2000)

If it's a floppy that has never been used, it should already be formatted. If it has been used before, you need to format it inorder to clean it first. You can do this by right clicking on your A:\> drive with the floppy inserted, and select the Format option. After that is complete, run the boot disk install program to install its files.


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## sweetcheekies (Aug 23, 2001)

okay this is exactly what is says from beginning to end


starting win 98
then i select start with cd rom support 
this driver is provided by oak technology. inc
0T1-91X ATAPI CD ROM DEVICE DRIVER. REV.D91XV352
Device name : MSCD001
NO drivers found, aborting installation

then it goes and does this


AIC-6260/6360/6370 ASPI MANAGER FOR DOS
VERSION 3.68S
COPYRIGHT 1990-1997 ADAPTEC

AIC- 78XX/ AIC-75XX 
VERSION 1.32S

PCI BUS SCAN COMPLETE

AHA 1540/1542/1640 ASPI MANAGER FOR DOS
VERSION 3.36S

AIC- 7890/91 ASPI MANAGER FOR DOS
VERSION 1.00S

PCI BUS SCAN COMPLETE


ASPI CRROM DRIVER FOR DOS
VERSION 4.015

MICROSOFT RAMDRIVE VERSION 3.06 VIRTUAL DISK F:
DISK SIZE 2,048 K
SECTOR SIZE 512 BYTES
ALLOCATION UNITS 2 SECTORS
DIRECTORY ENTRIES 64

PREPARING TO START COMPUTER 
THIS MAY TAKE A FEW MINUTES


THEN IT STARTS TO LOAD


DIAGNOSTIC TOOLS WERE SUCCESSFULLY LOADED TO DRIVE F:

DEVICE DRIVER NO FOUND 'MSCD001'
NO VALID CDROM DEVICE DRIVER SELECTED


TO GET HELP , TYPE HELP THEN PRESS ENTER


A:\>


THAT is all that i get


Sweet


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## marcg (Jun 12, 2001)

You are probably way past this, but I was reading "John1's" post and he accidently told you to type: Type: Format c:/s and I'm guessing thats exactly what you typed, which was "Type: Format c:/s" which would be the reason for the "Bad command or file name" response you received. Like I said, you may have already gone through finding out what you typed wrong and all that, but if not, then hope this clears up why you got that error. And if you still arent passed this step, the command should look exactly like this directly after the "C:\>"..."Format C: /s". Ok, thats all outta me, lol. May the force be with you.



marcg


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## Rollin' Rog (Dec 9, 2000)

Well, assuming you don't have the orginal startup floppy for the system, I'm not finding any practical answers for this. You either need to know the name and model number of the CD-Rom drive installed so the proper drivers can be found for it (Mosaic1 may be better able to help you with this than I) -- or, if all else fails, you can do what one person here with a similar problems did -- go out and by a cheap generic CD-Rom and install it.


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## marcg (Jun 12, 2001)

Question, did you get the computer with 98 already on it? Or did you or someone you know install it? I ran into this awhile back when I was trying to install 95 onto a pretty old computer and it kept saying that there wasnt a valid cdrom found or whatever, and it wouldnt load the cdrom drivers because the cdrom wasnt recognized. Is this an old computer? What kind of cdrom is it?



marcg


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## sweetcheekies (Aug 23, 2001)

its about 4 years old.. i had it upgraded about 4 years ago... its a atapi cd rom from what i can tell. I put win 98 se on it.. it worked fine until i decided to reformat it on my own  

any ideas? what did u do to fix the prob u had?

Sweet


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## marcg (Jun 12, 2001)

Actually, no, I never did get that far, lol. Sorry bout that. But, something just ocurred to me while I was looking for this one site that I thought may help, didnt find it, but anyhow, someone suggested that you get a generic cd rom and hook it up and then try. How bout you temporarily take the cdrom you have from your other computer and hook it up to it? That may just fix your dilema. Its not hard at all to do. Well, depending on what kind of case you have, lol. Let me look up some more info, and I'll get back to ya.


marcg


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## sweetcheekies (Aug 23, 2001)

i have 2 hard drives on my other computer.. the other one is partitioned off into 2 sections... 


will that do?

if so how do i go about doing that?
Sweet


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## marcg (Jun 12, 2001)

Thats not it, I mean "CD Rom" drive. Hard drives are a totally different thing. The cd rom drive is the device you actually place the cd into when the tray slides out. Ok, I'll be here.



marcg


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## sweetcheekies (Aug 23, 2001)

lol oooooooooppppppppppps duh.. okay sorry had a blonde moment there  

i dont know i hate that people are spending this much time trying to figure it out.. 

I appreciate all the help 


again would just installing win xp be any help then go back to win 98 ??????????


its just a idea.. it would save u all alot of research 


Sweet


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## marcg (Jun 12, 2001)

I wouldnt go that route. Its no prob, it gives me a bunch of practice. I just started generatin income helpin people out with there computer probs, so its all good with me  Im going to try and attach a file that may have drivers that you can copy to your start disk you are using. Hmm, maybe not......Go here for the file www.netpathway.com/~kramer/reinstall.html. It talks all about getting the correct dos driver for your cdrom and how to do it. you can read some if you want, but most of that wont help since youve already cleared 98 off of you computer. There's a section at the bottom that starts "If none of this works" download....then it shows a pic of two disks that you can try downloadin. Choose "save file to disk" and save it to your "desktop" go to your desktop and click on zipped folder and copy the files over to your startup disk you are using to reinstall 98. Tell me if this makes sense to you.

marcg


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## marcg (Jun 12, 2001)

I would go with downloading the "95b" bootdisk they have and unzip it to your "a:\" drive, make sure you have you startdisk you are using in the drive when you unzip it to there.


marcg


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## marcg (Jun 12, 2001)

The "a:" drive is already selected by default, so just click on "unzip" in the top right of the window that opens when you click on the newly downloaded self extracting zip file on your desktop.


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## sweetcheekies (Aug 23, 2001)

okay doing that now.. 

will brb with results


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## sweetcheekies (Aug 23, 2001)

okay here is what it did this time


lite on IDE cd rom device driver version 1.03
primary master
primary slave
secondary master
secondary slave
cd rom device driver not ready
abort or retry??

if i retry its the same thing

if i abort i get

No IDE cd rom found
please check cable or power cord
Ide device driver not installed

A:\> A:\> MSCDEX.EXE /d:mscdoo1 /l:d
device driver not found : 'Mscd001'
no valid cd device drvier selected

a:\>




basically the same thing right?


Sweet


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## marcg (Jun 12, 2001)

Ok, try inserting a blank formatted floppy in your "A" drive of the computer that's working and go to the site again. This time go to the area where it says at the bottom "If you don't have access to a bootable floppy (or I've lost you somewhere) here, by popular demand, are 2 complete bootable floppies,"[here] for the original 95,[here] for W95b (OSR2) or 98. Just stick a blank floppy in your A drive (If your floppy drive's not A: you'll have to change the destination) and double click the downloaded file. Reboot your computer with the floppy in the drive and your CDROM should be accessible. Click on the final [here] that appears in the paragragh. That is a complete startup disk with drivers that may work. Just follow the instructions that I already posted about all that unzipping it "a".


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## marcg (Jun 12, 2001)

Ok, try inserting a blank formatted floppy in your "A" drive of the computer that's working and go to the site again. This time go to the area where it says at the bottom "If you don't have access to a bootable floppy (or I've lost you somewhere) here, by popular demand, are 2 complete bootable floppies,"[here] for the original 95,[here] for W95b (OSR2) or 98. Just stick a blank floppy in your A drive (If your floppy drive's not A: you'll have to change the destination) and double click the downloaded file. Reboot your computer with the floppy in the drive and your CDROM should be accessible." Click on the final [here] that appears in the paragragh. That is a complete startup disk with drivers that may work. Just follow the instructions that I already posted about all that unzipping it "a".

*"If you don't have access to a bootable floppy (or I've lost you somewhere) here, by popular demand, are 2 complete bootable floppies,"[here] for the original 95,[here] for W95b (OSR2) or 98. Just stick a blank floppy in your A drive (If your floppy drive's not A: you'll have to change the destination) and double click the downloaded file. Reboot your computer with the floppy in the drive and your CDROM should be accessible."* Here's a clearer posting of the previous, i think, lol.


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## sweetcheekies (Aug 23, 2001)

nothing i get remove disks or other media  

Sweet C


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## deanas (Dec 20, 2001)

Hi sweetcheekies:
If I've read all the posts correctly, it sounds as
though you're cdrom isn't working.
(quote)
lite on IDE cd rom device driver version 1.03 
primary master 
primary slave 
secondary master 
secondary slave 
cd rom device driver not ready 
abort or retry?? 

if i retry its the same thing 

if i abort i get 

No IDE cd rom found 
please check cable or power cord 
Ide device driver not installed 

A:\> A:\> MSCDEX.EXE /d:mscdoo1 /l:d 
device driver not found : 'Mscd001' 
no valid cd device drvier selected 
(unquote)
Do you notice when the computer boots up
whether the bios check finds your cdrom.
(Usually mentions finding harddrives and
cdroms)
If your comfortable with going into the case, Try checking
the cable and power connection to the cdrom. Otherwise
try a another cdrom.
Dean


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## Mosaic1 (Aug 17, 2001)

> No IDE cd rom found
> please check cable or power cord


 This could be it. You may need to go into the case after unplugging the computer and grounding yourself and making sure the CD Drive is connected to the Motherboard.

If it is not detected, no drivers can load.

Have you ever formatted and installed on this particular Computer? If so and it was successful using the generic CDROM driver on the bootdisk, then the problem stems from something else. This message indicates that could be the case as well.

Did the drive work before when you were in Windows?

EDIT: Looks like Deanas and I had the same thought at about the same time.


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## sweetcheekies (Aug 23, 2001)

Okay i will go inside and look.. and yes right before i reformatted the computer worked fine. ITs my kids computer and its full of my old stuff and They wanted to add more of their games so I figured it was easiest to reformat it then take hours upon hours deleting everything then probably leaving little bits and pieces all over the place. And no I have never reformatted that computer ( or any others before) but I have asked about it and watched a few people do the reformats and wrote down step by step and then printed out step by step instructions and compared them to the ones i wrote and others on the net. It all was going good until the reformat was over  


thank god i didnt start learning the reformat process with my new computer  


Sweet


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## sweetcheekies (Aug 23, 2001)

I checked the power cord etc and its all fine.. the cdrom worked 5 minutes before i decided to reformat the computer. we are talking cd rom or harddrive? sorry making sure.

*living off only a few hours sleep because of this puter so please bear with me *


Sweet


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## sweetcheekies (Aug 23, 2001)

okay no luck with trying my driver from this computer.. it just wont pick it up.. when i went into town and asked at the computer place they said go to bios and have it start from the cd instead of the boot disk?

any idea on how to do that


sweet


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## Mosaic1 (Aug 17, 2001)

The reason I asked if you had ever formatted this particular computer before was to ascertain whether or not the Drive had given you a problem. Or if the generic driver had been good enough.

If the generic driver won't work for your CD drive I am not sure booting with the install disk will work either. However, you can try it.

Here's a page with various key combinations to enter the BIOS.
http://www.computerhope.com/help/cmos.htm

First lets see if the BIOS detects the CD drive. It may or may not. If the option to detect is there, do it. Set it to auto. Older BIOS did not detect CD drives. But yours is only 4 yrs old? so I am hoping it will. Once you are in the bios, this will all be clear. 
Be careful. Changes made in the BIOS can render the computer unbootable.

Next Go in and look for Boot Sequence. Set it to boot from
A then the CD drive and then the Hard Drive.
Save the settings and exit.
Put the Install CD in the Drive and restart the computer. 
(Your Bios may not give you the choice to boot from the CD Drive. If it doesn't, it doesn't. Don't worry about it.) If not, then you will not be able to boot from CD.


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## sweetcheekies (Aug 23, 2001)

THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR HELP BUT I QUIT LOL 


I took my computer to the next door neighbour .. for $20 he says he will fix it later today. sorry for the inconvinience all but enough is enough lol i started it by the cd rom and even got a diff disk to make sure it wasnt my win disk. he walked me through how to change the bios and it still didnt work. so he said he is going to play with it and he will get it up and running.


again thanks all for all the effort and time you gave to try and help me.



Sweet


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## Mosaic1 (Aug 17, 2001)

He'll probably open it up. Find out what CD drive it is and download the correct DOS drivers for it. Ask him for a copy of them.

Or he'll switch out your CD Drive with one he has in order to do the install. Then put your drive back.

Computers. Aren't they fun?


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## sweetcheekies (Aug 23, 2001)

oh yea tons of fun.. he told me he will let me know what he did .. when i get it back i will let u all know what he did that way we all know  I am scared to even have any one attempt reformating this computer but It needs it just as much if not more than the other one.. once i get my other one back i am taking all the kids games etc off of here and putting them on their computer. ( the whole purpose of formatting the other computer) then i will want to reformatt mine. I will be taking off alot of things from this computer and considerin all i do on this computer and what has been installed and uninstalled in the 2 years i am sure its due.. will it be a pain in the arse u think to reformat this one? 

i am running winxp pro with ie 6 

its all basically 2years old .. with a pent 3 in it.. dont knwo how to find out specs with win xp yet. 

but am i going to have this problem u think if i try it on this computer?


Sweet


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## marcg (Jun 12, 2001)

You can right click on "My Computer" and select "Properties" and that will give you the specs of your computer. It will tell you how much ram you have and the processor and mhz its operating at too. Talk to ya later






marcg


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## sweetcheekies (Aug 23, 2001)

Okay i have 534 MHz 
and 128 Ram 


thanks again for the help marc hope to talk to u soon we seem to keep missing each other on here.


Sweet


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## marcg (Jun 12, 2001)

Youre welcome, ok, what is that you are wondering about having a problem with on that computer? Reformatting? Or just have winxp pro on there? 






marcg


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## sweetcheekies (Aug 23, 2001)

after what i just went through with the other computer I am affraid to try and reformatt this one. I am affraid i will run into the same problems again. Call me chicken what have u but hey lol 


Oh and just so u all know i have my other computer up and running and what it was .... It had to do with not being a TRUE IDE hard drive? something of that sort .. he told me that he had to use a different hard drive to do it.. once he did that it went no problem. but he put my hard drive back in, and it works fine. he said that it just wouldnt work off of it in the way we wanted it to?



Thanks again for all the help 

sweet


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## marcg (Jun 12, 2001)

Who says reformatting is hard? lol Im just teasin, well, when you know how to do it, its not really hard at all. It sometimes is the only alternative to fixing OS problems that would otherwise take years and years to fix, lol. I just had to do a format and reinstall of my operating system too. It got all kinds of messed up, not sure exactly how it happened, but thats what I do......I get bored and want to mess with what isnt broke, and break it, LOL! My system restore wouldnt successfully restore anymore, so the purpose of that was defeated....My firewall no longer worked right and was unrepairable, even when uninstalled and reinstalled. Enough of all that nonsense, it was a nightmare sorta though, but anyhow, hope all goes well for you from here. Talk to ya later.




marcg


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## PugNugget (Jul 27, 2002)

Hey! I read over these posts, and I am experiencing that same thing! I've formatted my harddrive, and it's been saying the exact same things that have been posted here. That the cd-rom is not there, and the drives are not found etc. ( it's all posted in others... ) but, I was wondering if I should just try to put in another harddrive, to see if it fixes it, or if there are any other suggestions! Please email me with any info, or suggestions at all. thanks!!


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## sweetcheekies (Aug 23, 2001)

Okay this is what the guy that ended up fixing mine did.. i had done the reformat and it was because my hard drive was basically a cheap one. so what he did was use his hard drive to get windows back up and running ( a good hard drive) and then just put mine back in. now that iswhat he told me .. if there is more then i dont know... let me know back here if ur still having the problems and i can ask him to explain exactly what he did so i can let u know. 

good luck

Sweet


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## PugNugget (Jul 27, 2002)

Ok! What I did, is put another hard drive, from my other PC, into the one that need to be fixed. I booted it up, and it said the exact same stuff. Please try to get more info on what was done if possible. 

-Pug


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## prospect (Jun 13, 2002)

I also would love to know how you take one H.D out, put in another that is working, then all of the sudden the H.D that wasn't working is now working.

I can tell ya all about the problems I had with a Think Pad lap top,
and all the hours some of the nice people here spent working on it with me.

If ya need to hear a short version let me know. And finally the fix.

Prospect


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## PugNugget (Jul 27, 2002)

Well, i don't care how it's done, i just want to know how to fix the problem. Switching hard drives doesn't make sense to me, but I'll do whatever to get it working right again.

-PuG


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## prospect (Jun 13, 2002)

I was just thinking.I have 2 H.D.'S The only way I could think of is,
If he erased everything in the master drive and just put in an OS.
Then put in the drive in question as a slave and just coppied everything from the master to the slave using a Norton Ghost prog to save it like I do to the slave. And then just change it back to the master. I wonder if that would work.


Prospect


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## PugNugget (Jul 27, 2002)

well, i think i'll just turn it into a buddy of mine, i bet he knows this stuff. he fixes all our other comps. but, i'm leaving my options open.


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## prospect (Jun 13, 2002)

OK Pug,

Here's what I ended up doing with my H.D. problems. A friend turned me on to Bootdisk.com http://bootdisk.com/ Then I got a bootdisk that supports cd-rom to start. Then I also found a page there that tells ya how to do Partitioning and formatting. So I printed all 19 pages and studied them, and did what I learned.

The only thing that wouldn't work for me in the formatting part was the command to put the s switch in when I tried to format my c: (It said I didn't have enought memory. A:\> FORMAT C: / S)
So I just used at the prompt A:\> FORMAT C: and not the S.
So after about 6 hrs it took to format ( with a 266 pros) It asked for a volume # that I didn't have and just hit enter. Shut the pc down with the bootdisk in, and when it started there were 3 choices. It said,
Start win 98 setup from cd-rom (I'm running Win ME)
Start computer with cd-rom support (that's the one I used)
Start computer without cd-rom support.

Then when I got to the A:\ prompt, I think I just put setup D:
Or I put C: For the prompt then when I got to the C: prompt I just typed D: SETUP with the cd with the OS in the drive.

After I asked for cd-rom support bootdisk told me what letter my cd-rom was just before the prompt.

So I hope that I have not confused you to death. There mite be other problems that I can't answer, but I hope this helps you.

Prospect


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## john1 (Nov 25, 2000)

Heres my take on this, for what its worth.

I think that Sweetcheekies got it a bit wrong.
I think it was the CD drives that she meant.

I think that another CD drive was used to put the OS on.
Then the original CD drive was put back.
Maybe 'CD God', or similar was used to make the CD work.

That makes more sense to me.

Prospect: your suggestion of copying HD to HD, then
re-setting the master/slave settings, is a possibility
but i feel that the descriptions given make more sense
if you assume the problem lay with the CD unit, and it
was the CD unit that the guy did a swap-about to load.

John


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## sweetcheekies (Aug 23, 2001)

sorry about that .. i thought i did mean the cd drive. It was the problem .. I guess  i was just told that the CD DRIVE was not a true IDE drive?? Dont know but I called him and asked him and that is what i was retold.. My CD Drive works fine but wouldnt work to reload windows. Not sure why.. dont care ( NOW) my other puter is working.. still trying to figure a way to get my files from this computer to that one ( which wont read burnt cd's ) 


sorry for the miss information.


Sweet


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## john1 (Nov 25, 2000)

Sweetcheekies,
please dont worry about it.
I'm glad your system is running again.
Regards, John


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## carltasha (Nov 7, 2001)

yesterday I told someone to go top the c prompt to format /c and candy told me you need to format c from the a prompt ,


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## prospect (Jun 13, 2002)

it's me again sweet, I think you can get your cd-rom to read write cds's if you use this thing called UDF READER, I have version 1.03
Where do ya get it? I don't know. This lap top put it infor me when I tried to put some programs that I coppied from my machine to the lap top. Maybe someone here knows where to get it. I have it on a cd but don't know how get it to ya. 

I like the part about the cd god.

Prospect


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## prospect (Jun 13, 2002)

Yeah carltasha, Candy was right. you can't format c to c. You have to use the bootdisk to format, And you start at the A:\>, Thats the prompt from the floppy. Then you just type format C:

Then it wipes out everything on the drive.

I just tried it for the hell of it, and it wont format the C: from the C: prompt, you have to use the A: to get it to work. Not unless there is something that I don't know. Be cool all.

Prospect


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## john1 (Nov 25, 2000)

Hi prospect,

It is curious indeed that ive just done cleaning the
C drive, from the C drive, then i came across your post
that you tried it and couldn't.

Im assuming youre using Dos, from the C prompt.
To remove a directory (folder), you type rd[space]
then the name, in dos, of the directory you want to
remove.

However, its arranged so as it wont delete a folder
if theres anything in it. (safety feature i spose)

To delete all the files within a folder, I use *.*
thats (anything).(anything) This is a bit of a long
way around, but i didnt want to format from the A:\
because its a compaq, and they dont play fair.

Its taken a little while, but now i have C:dir =
nothing, and the diagnostic section is complete.

I havent managed to get the "Stupid Operating System"
to work yet though.

Regards, John


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## prospect (Jun 13, 2002)

Hey John,

Well, I don't know about the way compaq plays but I got tired of fighting with the IBM Thinl Pad I was working on.

To make a long story short, I got mad and started from scratch.
I went thru the whole part. From scandisk surface (or all) to partitioning and all the way thru to Formatting. This was all done thru the bootdisk and the A: prompt. I'm not sure what your trying to do. But if your just trying to install your O.S. again read my other post here. That worked for me. 
Did I help or make it worse?

Prospect


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## AdmiralTiger (Jul 30, 2002)

ever try format (space) c: (space) /q ? It could work.. but I think you already tried it.


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## john1 (Nov 25, 2000)

Hi prospect,

No you cant make it worse.
Im trying to load an operating
system on to an old compaq.
Compaq treat PCs a little different to most.
Well they used to, maybe they've been drawn
a bit more into line in recent years.
They set aside sections on the HD as 'Tools'
I dont know that those are partitions in the
usual sense, since they dont seem to behave
like normal partitions.

The OS im trying to put on is called "Stupid OS"
you can have a look here:

http://www.geocities.com/stupidosproject/

Its quite a small operating system, around 1MB
which is why i'm keen to put it on.

Unfortunately i havent been able to make it go.
I emailed the "Stu.OS." crew, they emailed back
Quote:

*********************
Hello John,
We are very sorry that we dont have a proper
documentation. But the problem you bring in is so
primitive for anyone to solve. When you work with
an OS you wont get an exe. You gotta run it out
with the bin(can download too!!!) you just get
when you compile the OS with the make file. Write
the bin to a boot floppy using dd command in UNIX
or Linux. Hope you would get things fine.
Regards
Ekanth
********************

I still dont know what to do. If you can help me
figure it out it would be nice. I dont know how
to run it out with the bin. And i get the distinct
impression that its meant for unix or linux, not
that it says that, it says use dd command in unix
or linux. I always thought that unix and linux are
operating systems?? Im trying to load an OS ??
It seems to be written in C or C++ not that i would
know much about that anyway.
Ive been on this now for weeks and weeks.
I am about ready to give up on it,
and i really dont want to.

Regards, John


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## prospect (Jun 13, 2002)

Hey John, Well! UNCLE!! I'm stumped, The only thing I ever fooled around with is Windows. Notr that I'm that good at Windows. But sometimes I can B.S somebody, but not this time.

It sounds like a cool problem. The kind that makes your head hurt.
I'm gonna keep watch and see if you get any help on this tough one.

Prospect


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## john1 (Nov 25, 2000)

well im absolutely fed up with it.
i cant even make head nor tail of their answer.

Im going to attack the problem in a different way.
This is the problem:

Occasionally someone will format the HD on a PC
that has no CD unit, but has a floppy unit.

I was thinking that there might be a way to put
a program on to a floppy which would enable the
user to load an OS on to the empty hard drive,
from maybe another PC or from the net.

I dont think thats too much to ask.

John


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## prospect (Jun 13, 2002)

Oh yeah I agree. Heaven forbid that something goe's half way easy. In this computer stuf, if it isn't almost impossible it's not any fun. YEAH RIGHT!

I'm trying to think of anybody that I know who could help ya with this one. It's probably not that all hard. But just getting the right commands and figuring out how the H.D. works. 

I just went tru this with a lap top. I'm not that good at this stuff, but I'm learning fast.

If I see this one guy on msn messinger, i'll see if he can stop by and maybe give a hand. I got him signed up here. We'll see.

Prospect


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## john1 (Nov 25, 2000)

Hi prospect,

thanks for your interest.
Had a chat with a mate, and an old DOS
program was mentioned. We thought it
was called 'X-fer' or something like
that. I vaguely remember some such
program for transferring files between
computers. It was in dos so it should
fit on a floppy, and used a wire-link
probably serial port to serial port.

This sounds like DCC to me.
The cable would probably be a crossover
of the null-modem type.

I feel that if i can find this program
or one like it, that will do the job.

Regards, John


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## john1 (Nov 25, 2000)

Well i kept jabbing away at google, and i found
something called 'Interlnk' thats interlink with
the second 'i' missing.

Its like DCC and its in DOS, it uses a wire link
maybe thats the one i was thinking of, anyway it
certainly looks like a contender.

I haven't tried it yet, im still reading bits on
the net about it from here and there.

I'm still a bit apprehensive about the FAT files.
If they're not 16 bit, that can cause problems.

So unless im mistaken that limits me to WIN 3.1,
and early WIN 95.

I would like a bit of advice about this.
Regards, John


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