format

[phungilax]

Well its time to format the good ole hard drive. I've really never dealt with a format but rather a new hard drive. So i want to run through the DOS commands so i don't have any glitches...

1. format c:
2. format e:
3. c:
4. md CAB
5. f:
6. copy *.* c:\CAB
7. Insert Boot Disk
8. Reboot
9. Install

How does it look?

[moonunit]

Danger! I find it really useful to have a disk containing all the useful DOS commands on hand, often a bootable one at that, 'cos once c:\..\command\ is gone, it may not run any of them. Assuming E is just some random partition for apps, (no D?) you should probably nuke that first.

I see no other difficulties, but I'm a little unsure about the c partition. It might whinge cos it's not a bootable disk, but I guess setup disk should take care of that.....

Does anybody else think it should be format c: /s for good measure?


Dunno why I haven't ever installed that way before. I've hijacked the windows setup disk CD-detection programs and done it straight off the CD. Never thought of sticking it all on the hard disk. Thanks for that indirect handy hint :).

Hope all goes well.

[cw823]

Boot from CD.

F:
cd win98
Format C: /q (quick format......much quicker)
C:
md cab(s)
F:
copy *.* C:\cab(s)
C:
cd cab(s)
setup.exe

no reason to reboot after format.



If you boot of a Win98 startup disk, make sure format.com is on there before continuing. It will run all of these off of the floppy.

[takiwa]

no reason to reboot after format.

I've never heard that one before...

phungilax, go to www.ranish.com and pick up a copy of partition manager, and format with it. It lets you change your boot record (standard IPL or boot record, for 9x/NT), you can quick format/full format, and it lets you choose format options for disc optimization...only NTFS is not supported. Other than that, will be the easiest thing you ever did...

[David]

You have to reboot after repartitioning but not after formating

[takiwa]

after posting that, I realized I had suffered from a minor brain-fart...sorry