# accidentally deleted primary partion



## twelcher (Aug 23, 2003)

I was trying to do a clean install and deleted the primary partition. I don't really care about any of the data. It is an older Laptop,Gateway, Pent11, 33mhz, Win 98, internal floppy and CD rom drive and was just trying to get it running for my kids. I had twice successfully reformatted 2 hard drives on a Compaq (am a newbie at this) but when I was trying to use the start up disk it wasn't accessing the drive so I started it in Dos and that's when I deleted the primary partition. Anyway, how do I create a new partition? When I turn it on it say, operating system not found, invalid partition. Any help would be greatly appreciated ! Thanks!


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## Robert Henry (Jul 29, 2004)

You fdisk, format the drive, create primary partition to max available space, format it, then to make sure that you have a clean partition, delete it again, format the drive, create primary partition to the max size, format it. If the drive is bigger than 2 gig you can create additional partitions, just make sure that the boot partition is set as active.


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## DaveBurnett (Nov 11, 2002)

Now here is a sneaky one. Run FDISK and recreate the partition you deleted. make is active, but DON't Format it for now. The do a FDISK /MBR and you may just find that the original partition is now accessible and will boot. This is NOT guaranteed, but does often work if yo have done nothing else with the disk in the meantime.


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## twelcher (Aug 23, 2003)

Ok, here is the problem. When I turn on the computer it has the Bios info, etc. and then the last lines it says. Operating system not found.Invalid partiion talbe. Setup cannot continue. I tried to put inthe Windows start up disk, but it doesn't seem to access it.


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## Elvandil (Aug 1, 2003)

Try this partition repair program. Download it and run it to create a floppy. Boot from the floppy. At the prompt, type:
pr
to begin the recovery process. Follow the onscreen directions (I think it was Ctrl-Enter to start a scan of the drive to look for partitions).

http://users.adelphia.net/~abraxas/dl/APR.exe

If you can't boot from floppy or CD, go into BIOS setup and set the boot sequence to Floppy/CD/Hard Drive.


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## twelcher (Aug 23, 2003)

OK but I can't remember how to get into the BIOS. It won't boot from the floppy


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## Elvandil (Aug 1, 2003)

On Gateways, it's usually F1 or F2, but some require a jumper to be moved. Do you remember if yours did?


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## twelcher (Aug 23, 2003)

I am in setup but I don't know how to change the boot sequence


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## twelcher (Aug 23, 2003)

Found it. Boot sequence says A: then C:


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## twelcher (Aug 23, 2003)

Ok was able to access A drive, and downloaded the above , but it just says invalid disk.


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