Hi Guys, I just want to know if someone can tell me what settings to go in, to re-format an old pc of mine? I have an old pc in my mams house and my niece was messing about on it drawing and painting and stuff but she's messed it up. I don't use the pc anymore myself as I have an up to-date one but it was handy to have in my mams to keep the kids quiet when your talking lol. Now when I switch the pc on, I hear this repeated ringing noise and an error msg comes up saying windows can't start up and a menue appears asking what mode to start in, "normal","safe" ect.... No matter what mode I want to start up in, it won't unless you try about 15 times then it starts up. When I finally got it to start up, I went to systen tools and maintence and ran that. It said it repaired some files so I thought fine, then a few minutes later another error msg appears saying " this program has performed an illegal opperation" or somethin like that anyway. Basically the pc is Fu*ked. I can't figure out how to re-format though?? Anyone help me on this? Thanks Sandisk
Make sure you have an empty, working floppy disk, a CD with the windows 98 setup files, and the name of the drive which you wish to format. 1. Start the PC 2. Create a boot disk. To do this, go to Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Add/Remove Programs -> Startup Disk. Follow the instructions on that screen. 3. Make sure your 'First Boot Device' in the BIOS is set to 'Floppy' 4. With the boot disk inside the floppy drive, boot up the computer. 5. When asked, select 'Start computer with CD-ROM support' 6. It'll display some messages. At the end, it'll show something like this: Drive E:MSCD001 Just note the alphabet before the colon ), in this case, E 7. Since you mentioned that your PC is old, I suggest you repartition it's HDD. The command is fdisk. Now format the partitions that you created with the format command. More information on http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q255867/ 7. Insert the CD with the Windows 98 Setup files in your CD-ROM Drive. 8. Type the letter which you got earlier, followed by a colon. (E, and press enter. 9. Type dir /a and press enter. 10. Look for the Windows 98 directory (just as you look in windows, but the name will be not more than 8 characters) 11. Say the folder name is WIN98SE, type cd win98se and press enter. 12. Type setup and press enter. 13. Now, follow the instructions on the screen. NB: If your Windows 98 CD is bootable, you don't need to create the boot disk. Just make sure that the first boot device is set to 'CD-ROM' instead of 'Floppy' Post if you have any doubt.
I don't actually have the cd with windows 98 setup files. Any idea where the best place to get the files would be? I take it they can still be bought in stores, could they? I know I could prob download from my pc here with broadband but for some reason the other pc won't allow me to play back up cd's or dvd's. I know this because I burned ad-aware and a couple of other spyware tools to cd to try delete what ever was on the pc but it wouldn't let me load up at all. I know the pc is old, but you could watch dvd's on it. The pc is so gone that I downloaded ad-aware with just dial up and after waiting ages for the download to complete, it said error and wouldn't work. So the 98 setup files??? Thanks for the reply and help. Sandisk
I'm not sure, but you may get it in stores. First, check on your harddisk if you have it copied. The files should be named 'setup.exe', about 75-80 CAB (Cabinet) files. If you find it, just burn it on a CD. If not, you can always download it, or buy the 'cheap' CD. *cough*cough*piracy*cough*cough* Or just ask someone else to lend it to you. Believe me, getting a Win98 Setup Cd should be no problem (atleast where I live, but you can always try).
Thanks for the reply. I'll have to have a look a pc shop and see if I can get it cheap. The old pc has no burner. I bet if I searched p2p or bittorrent I'd find it no prob :-0) but as I said the damn old pc won't accept back up cd's or dvd's for some reason?? So I'm snookered there. I'll try and find it in the shops in the next couple of days. I'll keep you posted. Thanks for the help. Sandisk
Ok, just a quick update on this. Unfortunately the pc is not here in my house so I can't keep picking away at it. But I was in my Mams today and i brought with me a burned disc with 98 setup files. And just as I guessed it won't recgonoise the cd. So I went and got an original dvd and tried that, and it wouldn't accept that either. The rom drive is D, so I right clicked on D and then hit properties. It comes up on the graph all the space used up. But it says "capacity 0bts" "Space used 0bts". Basically it's telling me the d drive is full. I'm lost here. Any suggestions how to sort out the rom drive which is D. There's prob something wrong with that and thats why it's not accepting any cd's or dvd's. Thanks
Just one question: Why are you trying to access the CD from windows? If your PC is screwed, just forget everything and reformat it. If it doesn't recognise CDs even in DOS (NOT the windows-based DOS mode), it means that the drive is dead. Get a new one, it dosen't cose much.
Well thats it, how do I re-format it? I've re-formatted my own pc here by hitting f10 or something like that when the pc is startin up. But on the windows 98, I don't know how to re-format. I right clicked on the c drive, and in the dropdown menue there was an option to format the drive so I clicked it and it said "cannot format drive it's being used by windows files". All I want to know how to do is wipe the whole pc and start fresh. I don't need any stuff on the pc. So how do I re-format the whole pc? Thanks Sandisk
To format your Hard Drive you need to turn on your computer while holding the Ctrl key. Wait until a menu comes up and select 'Command Prompt Only' when this comes up, to format your hard drive type 'format x: (where x is your drive letter) I have a Windows 98 setup cd as I am running the os,but dont' have broadband,although the Setup files altogether are not that big
Sorry, I thought there was a way to re-format without the 98 setup files. As I said, for some reason the rom drive won't even accept even an original dvd or cd, there seems to be an issue with the rom drive, when I click on it and hit properties, its say All space used up even though nothing in the drive. Its as though the space capacity of the rom drive is 0bts. I'd have no prob downloading these files if the pc would accept a burned cd, I could download from here and install on that pc but rom drive is supposedly "All space used" and won't accept any cd or dvd. Pc is probably just Fuc*ed
This is how the properties of a used CD should look (typically) And of a BLANK CD So if yours displays zero in both the cases, I think you can safely come to the conclusion that your drive is er...gone. Why don't you rent one?
Yeah mine looks like your first pic, only I have nothing in the drive. Ah it's on old pc and I don't use it myself, it was only for the kids. I'll just scrap the pc. Thanks for the help anyway guys. sandisk
