Will Win98 Format A Drive That Had Xp On It?

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Steve Hubbard

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Hi Ya People,

The Question Today Is Wether A Win 98 Boot Disk Will Format & Do All The Things I Need To Get Xp Running Again? It Has Been Mentioned That Because It Was Formatted By Xp That 98 Wont Touch It Now - File Allocations?

I Need To Know If This The Case Before I Sit There Trying All Nite
 
hmm im not 100% sure but i think it depends on what file system the hard disc was formatted to, if it's NTFS then the answer is no as Win98 uses fat32 so the boot disc wouldn't read the drive, but i'm wondering why you want to format the drive for XP using a Win98 boot disc, just format and re-install using the XP one, although i'm guessing you dont have an XP disc ? .
 
Hiya Steve.

You can format, delete partitions etc using a Windows 98 boot floppy, but it will only format the drive in the fat file system, and not in the NTFS file system which is prefered by XP.

I don`t know why you would want to do this when you can boot from the XP cd and format from there?

Regards Howard :cool:
 
Re: Xp / Windows Fat32 / Ntfs

Hi Ya,

When You Say Disc Do You Mean An Xp Boot Disk? (i Have The Original Cd) I Was Using The Win98 Disk To Provide Drivers For Cd Drive Support. Does The Xp Boot Disk Have This? I Would Rather Use Xp All The Way Thru If Poss.
 
The Xp disc has drivers that give cd rom support just insert the XP disc restart the PC and keep pressing F2 or what ever it is on your PC to call up the boot menu and select boot from CD and follow the instructions.
 
Yes Steve. Windows xp will install the generic drivers for your CD_rom etc.

Can you please fill in your system specs in your user profile at the top of any page? Just click on edit profile.

Things we need to know are HERE

Regards Howard :grinthumb
 
Steve Hubbard said:
I Cant Get It To Boot From The Cd Cdrive @ The Moment. Is That Just A Matter Of Messing With The Boot Order In The Bios?
Click to expand...

yes just go into your bios set up and change the boot order to cd first then hdd.

put you XP cd into the drive and then save and exit bios and follow the on screen instructions.

A point to note is, you will be asked to press any key to boot from cd, after a while Windows will reboot when again you will be asked to press any key to boot from cd. Do not press any key a second time as this will only start the process of installation from scratch.

Regards Howard :grinthumb
 
hmm i have never had to change the order in the Bios to boot from the XP cd. shouldn't there be a boot menu to choose to boot from cd ?
 
Darth_Terra1 said:
hmm i have never had to change the order in the Bios to boot from the XP cd. shouldn't there be a boot menu to choose to boot from cd ?
Click to expand...

The normal boot order Or should I say the correct boot order should be. Floppy drive( if you have one ) then cd- drive and finally the hdd.

However this is not always the way the bios has been set up so, hence the need to go into the bios and set the boot priority.

Regards Howard :grinthumb
 
Usually when you turn on your computer for the first time, and unless you change it the BIOS boot order is usually Floppy, then HDD, then nothing. You will need to change it to Floppy, then CD, then HDD. This will be a one time thing to do, and you shouldn't have to mess with it again, and if you ever need to do this again, it's already setup properly.

So to get into your BIOS you will need to hit F1, F2, DEL, INS. I'm not sure which is proper for your motherboard. It should tell you right after it checks your memory. You will need to do this after you hear it POST, or 'beep'
 
This Just Gets Better - Slight Progress Me Thinks

Hi ya people,

Ok - i have got it bootable (98 bootdisk) but. . .even thought it will read the cd drive (dir etc etc) it will not boot.It says ''Cant run under dos'' or words to that effect.I have changed the boot order in BIOS so many times but still no joy.Can i run format - fdisk etc etc from the cd?I tried to install an OEM version of win 95 & it installed but. . . came up with ''windows protection error'' or something - ''you need to restart your computer'' -when it was starting for the first time.I think therefore the cd drive IS working - perhaps i'm carrying out a procedure wrong or something.So close yet do far.Does anyone have any pointers today?

As always - well well appreciated, Steve :confused: :confused:
 
Hiya Steve.

This becoming quite troublesome isn`t it?

Here`s what I would do.

Boot from the 98 floppy and run fdisk, then delete all the partitions and then exit.

Then try to boot from your XP disk and see what happens.

I take it that your boot order in bios is floppy/cd/hdd?

Also please would you give us the system specs for the machine?

Regards Howard :cool:
 
Biography:
A man who will dismantle. . .
Location:
Bromley,Kent
Interests:
Computers,Cars,all things technical.
Occupation:
Operations manager
My System Specs (#1):
Home:
Processor:
AMD K6-2/500mhz
Motherboard:
Aladdin (GA-5AX)
Memory:
64mb @ least (128+)
Videocard:
GeForce 2 MX32 TV out
Hard Disk(s):
Maxtor 90432D3 4.2GB/Conner CFS850A 850MB
Other Drives:
AOPEN CD/RW-CRW 4850
Comments on system #1:
Worked well wth above & XP.NOT ANYMORE

Hi ya howard - have just put all this on the profile.Hope your good - yes most troublesome but fun all the same.
 
Looking at the system specs I would`ve thought that the system would struggle to run XP properly.

personally I would be tempted to ditch the XP and go for either 2000 or 98se.

Just my opinion though.

Regards Howard :grinthumb
 
I would expect it to run reasonably with a bit more memory 256KB. I think Howard's idea of Win2000 is a much better bet.

Boots
 
I'm sure it has more than that.It has 2 sticks (bay:0/pc100/64mb-bay:2/pc133/64mb) installed (i will check the final count while it boots).My main aim @ the moment is to get running @ all.Iget paid @ the end of the month & will buy some nice goodies then- memory,bigger HDD etc etc.Until then i'm skint & stuck.If i run windows 95 to get something on there - while initialising I/O system windows caused a protection fault (or words to that effect).What a pain but fun all the same.Was running before ok as well - so cant understand why i cant get it running now.Good job i have no hair.

Regards, Steve
 
I know what you mean about no hair lol

Unless I`ve missed it somewhere. Could you please let me know what happened in the first place.

What I mean is did it just stop working for no apparrent reason?

Had you installed or uninstalled any new hardware/software etc?

Have you checked all the ide cables, jumpers etc?

Regards Howard :cool:
 
And How It Came To Pass. . .

Was all ok to start but the modem would not fire up - was seen/said working properly (device manager) but was not dialing out.I uninstalled it & tried putting it back to no avail - lack of drivers me thinks - auto detect didnt.Anyhow instead of waiting to go & buy a USB modem (USB was working fine - it picked up my mobile modem) i formatted the smaller of the 2 HDD's.After that it would not boot & the 98 boot disk i had somehow lost / corrupted some files - con.sys etc etc.Igave up in the end 7 by using various ''bits'' on various disks i managed to get it formatted.An install of windows 95 hung right @ the finish when restarting & the problems started then.Cant remember how the BIOS got slaughtered.Defo me that did it though.And so there we are.

It used to have an archaic sound/modem/graphics card in it SCSI? (creative Vibra16-TDQ 9533 but was removed & replaced with GeForce2 MX32 - TV out etc etc. :blush:
 
Disconnect everything that`s not required to make Windows start, including the second harddrive.

Make sure that all componants are seated and connected properly.

Then try what I suggested in my ealier post.

regards Howard :cool:
 
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