format

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?

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.

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.

no reason to reboot after format.

Click to expand...

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...

You have to reboot after repartitioning but not after formating

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