Formatting Windows 98

<A HREF="http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q255867" target="_new">How to Use the FDISK Tool and the FORMAT Tool to Partition or Repartition a Hard Disk (Q255867)</A>

In this situation, you won't need to repartition, but only format the active partition. If there is only one partition on the hard drive, the drive letter for the partition will be (C. This means, after creating a boot disk, all you'll need to do is type "FORMAT c: /s" (without the quotes) at the command line DOS Prompt, press Enter, agree to the warning message, and choose "Y".

You can download the boot disk here:

<A HREF="http://www.mirrors.org/archived_software/www.bootdisk.com/original.htm" target="_new">Mirrors.Org Boot Disks</A>

Just download the boot disk of your choice, place a freshly formatted disk in the floppy drive, and double-click the downloaded file. It will find the floppy disk, and extract the needed files.

Afterwards, you'll be able to load Win98 on the formatted partition.

Note: You'll have to change the boot order in the BIOS to A, or the floppy drive to format the disk. When this is finished, in order to install Win98, you'll have to change this to CD-ROM, and boot with the operating system installation CD. After the operating system is installed, you can change this to C, or IDE 0, which will speed up the boot process.

The instructions for entering Setup, or the BIOS, should appear on the first screen as the computer boots. It is generally DEL, or F1 ... but it varies, depending on the BIOS version, and if the computer is proprietary.

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