Installing Windows 98se on a messed up Harddrive

[daniel161]

Ok, I was messing around with my computer today, supposedly going to end up with a fresh install of 98se. Everything was working ok, until I wanted to see if this (slower) would accept XP... So I had an NTFS hd now. That started my problems...

The HD is 13gb


Now in the end, I have the drive partitioned into 4gb sections,

4gb
4gb
4gb
whatevers left gb


I install 98se on the C: 4gb and it goes without any errors. But when the computer does that first restart after installation, it doesn't find anything, just a blank screen with the little white cursor blinking on the upper left.


So here are my questions,


1. How would a quick convert to NTFS mess it up?
2. Is their a tool to download and run as a bootable cd to help out with the partitions?
3. What the heck did I do?



Here is my current list of cds that I can work with...

1. Windows98se installer cd.
2. Xubunu live distro (for its partion app.)
3. NT4 Workstation install cd, (used to check partitions and format between fat and ntfs)
4. A blank floppy


everything above has helped to get me where I am now, again, my end goal is to get 98se to run properly.


The computer and cds all work and are configured correctly.



Thanks for any help!



--Daniel L

 

[SNGX1275]

I'm not sure what you did.

What I'd do in your situation now though is boot up with xubuntu and see if you can get the setup to delete all your partitions. If not, boot from the 98se disk and wipe your partitions (all of them).

Then fresh start with your 98se disk. Luckily your disk is small enough that 98se isn't going to have a problem with it.

 

[Nodsu]

Hum.. You didn't convert that 98 C: to NTFS, did you? WIndows 98 does not support NTFS.

And yes, as SNGX said, you should wipe the partition table and start over. It is very easy to confuse Windows with funny partitioning.

 

[daniel161]

Thanks guys! fdisk fixed my problem, I almost forgot about that little utility!