I formatted C drive...

Discussion in 'Computer Science & Culture' started by tormented, Feb 23, 2003.

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  1. tormented Registered Member

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    My friend has windows 98...he was having problems so I formatted his C drive....

    I can get to the bios and now the computer reads his C drive first..then A...
    He has the disc to run and install the windows...

    It asks for the command to enter...

    What is the command..? Does anyone know...?
     
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  3. wet1 Wanderer Registered Senior Member

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    You should give exactly what it is that you see for the screen displays.

    The most common command is setup for initating an install sequence however I can not be sure as computers are different and so are OS's designed for specific makers.
     
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  5. Stryder Keeper of "good" ideas. Valued Senior Member

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    Installing Win98 on a Formatted harddrive is easy enough, it is just Setup.exe.

    It should then run SCANDISK.

    If you are using a CDROM, some BIOS's allow you to try the CD-ROM first at bootup, the Win98 disk will actually allow you to boot/install directly from CD.

    Otherwise you have to load an Emergency disk to give you a skeleton DOS structure in a RAM drive, to which you can then select to run Setup.exe

    Just some notes if you haven't installed yet:

    Partitioning
    Partitioning your drive can save you alot of time and effort, for instance if you have a 40Gb hard-drive, you can imagine how long it would take to scandisk and then defrag.

    If there was a bug it could corrupt your data and stop your OS loading.

    A good method here would be to split your harddrive into partitions.

    A Partition for your OS (At least 2.5Gb), 1 Partition for a Swap drive (Usually only needs about 600Mb, but better with 1Gb) and then use the rest of the drive for files etc. (you can split it into two partitions to try and keep the sizes down.)

    The idea is that if you want to speed your OS up, you defrag your OS partition and maybe the Swap drive, and you can leave the storage spaces for longer without bombing your system out with bluescreens.

    However you have to make sure that when you install new programs that you don't use the Default C:\program Files folder, as you should pick your largest partition to house your Warez.

    Folder name
    Some viruses aren't "Smart" in the sense that rather than using variable nameholders (i.e. %Yourdrive% ), they just write down a standard install (i.e. c:\windows\system ). It's notible that naming a different folder during install will stop those viruses effecting your system.

    Windows Script Hosting
    If you don't intend to use WSH (Windows Script Hosting) make sure you don't select it during the install. Windows script hosting can allow a system to be automated better, but again can be misused for VB viruses.
     
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  7. tormented Registered Member

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    Thanks...I'll try that..

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  8. one_raven God is a Chinese Whisper Valued Senior Member

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    If the BIOS allows booting from the CD ROM drive (most fairly recent ones do) then set it up to boot from the CD, put the Win98 CD in the drive, and boot.

    Setup will run automatically.
     
  9. tormented Registered Member

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    I put the floopy in A drive and started..it asked if I wanted cd-rom support..I entered yes...
    Then it will do the PCI scan..then it will say...A:\.

    I entered c:\ and it swithed to C>....I typed 'setup'..then it says it can't be run in DOS mode..


    So now what..do I go to Bios and change it...?

    To what...?
     
  10. tormented Registered Member

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    Ok...someone has helped me...it's an older computer and doesn't read cdrom..only c and a...I know what to do for here..I'll let you know..
    thanks...
     
  11. CaptainThor Registered Member

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    Find out what to press on start up and try to get into the bios, enable to boot from cd, and hopefully the 98 installer can take over, if not, and you can get into command prompt with a floppy. Take the disc, and read it in another computer and browse it for the setup exe, that should be the command to run on in the prompt (should be setup though0.
     
  12. Xerxes asdfghjkl Valued Senior Member

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    Stryder,

    You mention that by naming drive C:/ differently during installation, I can prevent viruses.

    I plan on reinstalling XP pretty soon (due to driver problems), and was curious: Can I still do this sort of thing with XP? Like name it "b" instead of "c". I'm not sure if Microsoft still allows you to take control of these details when so many people are computer-dumb.

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    -Thanks
     
  13. Stryder Keeper of "good" ideas. Valued Senior Member

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    Elbaz

    When I mentioned "naming a drive", you know I meant "Pointing to different partition/drive". Usually on most PC's drive A: and even B: are kept for floppies.
    (Although B: use to be for those really massive 5.25" disks that didn't have much storage capacity, although plenty in it's time)

    What I mentioned was you could name your windows folder:
    i.e.

    Instead of C:\windows, you could call it C:\Elbazwin

    When it comes to using a different drive, most OS systems try to use the first Drive/Partition thats C: or above. This is down to how your system boots up (and how it writes it's bootblocks)

    I think with most newer systems it should allow you to use Drive D: if you want to but on older systems or different OS's you might have problems.

    Note: I'm not 100% sure of XP but if you can Fdisk the drives the "Primary Drive" is usually the one picked for installing too (and booting from)
     
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