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Topic covered in help fix and repair windows problems.

• How to format a new hard drive with windows 98 boot disk.
  Learn how to format a new hard drive or hard disk booting from a windows 98 boot disk.



• How to format an existing hard drive with windows 98 boot disk.
  All you need to know on how to format a hard drive using a windows 98 disk.



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Format an old or existing hard drive using windows 98 boot disk

First you need to set your computer to boot from your floppy disk drive.
You do this in the setup or BIOS screen.
To access your start-up or BIOS press F2 or the DEL key when you boot up your computer.
If one of these two commands do not work then look on your screen when you boot up your computer to see how you enter your start-up program.

Once you are into your start-up or BIOS you need to go to the boot page and set your computer boot priority to boot from your floppy drive first.
This is usualy on the advanced page or the boot page.

As all BIOS are different you will have to look for this.
Once you have set the computer to boot from the floppy drive make the second boot device your CD drive and the third boot device your hard drive
Make sure your windows 98 boot up floppy disk is in your floppy disk drive.
Now save changes and exit your BIOS.

Your computer should now restart and boot from the floppy disk.
You will see Searching for boot record from floppy. OK. on the screen.
The floppy disk is booting DOS, Just leave it until you get an A prompt. This is the black screen with A:>

Next type FDISK then press enter.

You will now see a lot of writing with
do you wish to enable large disk support (Y/N) [Y]
Press the enter key.

How To Delete Your Partitions

You will now see a screen with 4 choices

1. Create DOS partition or logical drive
2. Set active partition
3. Delete partition or logical drive
4. Display partition information

and at the bottom Enter Choice: [1]
Replace the 1 with 3 to delete partiton or logical drive and press ENTER.

On the next screen you will see 4 more options.

1. Delete primary DOS partition
2. Delete extended DOS partition
3. Delete logical DOS Drives in the extended partition
4. Delete non-DOS partition

Place 1 in the brackets and press ENTER.
If you have more than one partition you will have to first delete any logical drives extended drives or non-DOS drives then delete the primary drive.

You will see a warning about data being lost, press the ENTER key to continue.
You now have the option to name your drive.
I never bother naming my drives.
Leave it blank and press ENTER.
Another warning asking are you sure press Y Then ENTER.
You have just deleted your hard drive partitions.
Press the ESC key

Recreate your hard drive partitions.

You now have to create a new partition.
After pressing the ESC key you should now be back to the first screen with the following 4 options.
If you do not see this screen reboot your computer and follow the insturtions above until you get to this screen.

1. Create DOS partition or logical drive
2. Set active partition
3. Delete partition or logical drive
4. Display partition information

Next make sure that option 1 is placed in the brackets near Enter Choice: [ 1 ] to Create Primary DOS Partition or logical drive and press Enter.
Again make sure option one is selected to Create Primary DOS partition and press ENTER. The computer will now verify the drive integrity. Leave this until it has finished.

On the next screen leave the Y in the brackets and press Enter.
Your computer will now create the partition.
Once the partition has been created you will be asked to restart your computer.

Restart your computer by pressing the CTRL-ALT-DEL keys at the same time.

Format Your Hard Drive

Once your computer has rebooted and you have the A:> prompt back type in FORMAT C: and press enter.
Do not forget the colon ( : )after the C.
You will now see a warning about all data being lost. Press Y then press Enter.

You computer will now format your hard drive.
On the next screen after you hard drive has been formatted you will get the message.
Volume label (11 characters, ENTER for none).
If you dont want to name your hard drive just press the Enter key.

That is how to delete a partition and format an existing hard drive with a windows 98 boot disk.