formatting harddrive

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mustafa Khalid
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M

Mustafa Khalid

I have been having a lot of trouble with my computer, and want to start
again with a clean slate by formatting my hard drive. Currently my 30gb is
partitioned into C:(20) & D:(10)
I have copied the windows 98 cd to my D: and was thinking about formating c:
and then run windows from d: and then format d: Will this work? And will
data still remain from my current system? Also where is DOS stored? And what
do I need to do if I simply format everything and start from scratch?
 
I have been having a lot of trouble with my computer, and want to start
again with a clean slate by formatting my hard drive. Currently my 30gb is
partitioned into C:(20) & D:(10)
I have copied the windows 98 cd to my D: and was thinking about formating c:
and then run windows from d: and then format d: Will this work?
Click to expand...

You mean running windows setup from D:? Yes, that will work.
And will
data still remain from my current system? Also where is DOS stored? And what
do I need to do if I simply format everything and start from scratch?
Click to expand...

If you copy everything you need from the c: partition to the d: partition
first, then format c:, re-install windows, move everything you need back,
format d:, then yes the data will remain.
The files for DOS are pretty much stored in the c:\windows folders; there
is no separate install path or procedure (MS was trying to hide DOS, after
all).

Backup everything you want and make sure you have drivers for all your
hardware, and you can wipe out both partitions and start from scratch. If
you were running out of room anyway, you could install a second hard
drive, and leave everything on your current drive as a slave (ie c: and d:
would become d: and e: if you formatted a new drive as one partition, set
as primary master) until you were sure you had everything you needed.
 
What you have suggested will not work.
First run Scandisk (thorough, or surface scan), then Defrag. If that runs successfully you should reinstall windows over the existing installation (in the same directory). Reinstalling windows will often fix a lot of windows weirdness by replacing corrupted or out of date system files and correcting registry problems.
If you still have serious problems you will have to format and do a clean windows installation, which means you will have to reinstall all of your applications. Remember to back up your data before you format.
 
I have been having a lot of trouble with my computer, and want to start
again with a clean slate by formatting my hard drive. Currently my 30gb is
partitioned into C:(20) & D:(10)
I have copied the windows 98 cd to my D: and was thinking about formating c:
and then run windows from d: and then format d: Will this work? And will
data still remain from my current system? Also where is DOS stored? And what
do I need to do if I simply format everything and start from scratch?
Click to expand...

You can copy the win98 folder to the D: partition, backup any data on
C: to D:, then format C: and install windows from the win98 folder on
D:.

I see little point to formatting D: afterwards though, unless you just
wanted to be rid of the files... would be useful to keep (or recopy)
the win98 folder to D: though, since it's going to be looking for it
from same location used to install windows every time you reconfigure
anything... there's a way, a registry edit making it possible to
change the "pointer" to a different location for the installation
files but I forget where that is... a Google search would find it.

As for your question about "will data still remain from my current
system?", only what you copy to D: will remain, a format wipes out
anything remaining on C:

When you format the C: partition, use the command "format /sys C:",
which will write the DOS system files to the C: partition. It will
then be bootable, but you don't need to boot to it, right after the
formatting is finished you can then run the setup file from the
D:\win98 folder without rebooting first... it's when doing FDISK
activities that you'd need to reboot afterwards. When reinstalling
the OS it's always handy to verify that your windows CD is bootable,
that the system works properly to boot from it, or that you have a
working (win98) boot floopy.

If you want to format everything, do as I suggested, have the bootable
CD or floppy handy, then boot to it, and copy the win98 folder from
the win98 cd to the D: partition, then it will install faster from the
HDD than it would've from the CD... but again, I see no point to
reformat D:, it won't affect your getting windows installed and
running again unless D: is corrupted... run scandisk on it to check.
 
Mike, he does want to format his drive, he just needs to make a startup disk
to boot as opposed to booting from d.

Mike Walsh said:
What you have suggested will not work.
First run Scandisk (thorough, or surface scan), then Defrag. If that runs
Click to expand...
successfully you should reinstall windows over the existing installation (in
the same directory). Reinstalling windows will often fix a lot of windows
weirdness by replacing corrupted or out of date system files and correcting
registry problems.
If you still have serious problems you will have to format and do a clean
Click to expand...
windows installation, which means you will have to reinstall all of your
applications. Remember to back up your data before you format.
 
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