Can Not Reformat HD

[joeski]

I am unable to reinstall WIN98SE from the cd. Also, when I try to boot from a disk I get I/O error and my laptop does not boot. Any idea what is happening?

 

[NeoPTLD]

Originally posted by: joeski
I am unable to reinstall WIN98SE from the cd. Also, when I try to boot from a disk I get I/O error and my laptop does not boot. Any idea what is happening?

Go to your BIOS and setup the floppy as first boot device.

Use a Windows 98SE boot disk that is known to work and try. I'd use a Windows 98 setup floppy if you can.

Bring it to A:\ and type fdisk

Say yes if it asks you about large format something.

Once you're in fdisk, configure partitions as you want it and it will assign driver letters.

Quit fdisk and reboot from diskette.

type in format x: x=drive letter you're preparing.

 

[joeski]

I tried booting from the A: drive again and was able to fdisk and format the C: drive. Now I am stuck tryng to load WIN98. I shut down and rebooted with the WIN98 disk and all I get is an eror message "invalid system disk".

 

[earthman]

Do you have it set to boot from the CDROM? If not, it won't start setup because its looking at the "empty" hard drive.

 

[joeski]

Set to boot from CDROM. Never did set A: as the first choice.

 

[earthman]

Are you sure its trying to boot from the cd? When it gets to that point, you should see a message "booting from CDROM" and it should spin up and the light blink if it has one....it sounds to me like its not doing that.

 

[joeski]

Thanks for replying. This pc is beyond my knowledge level to restore. I dropped it off with a real Tech today. Hope to have it back soon.

 

[joeski]

My pc is back and running with WIN2000. The tech discovered that he also could not load any OS until he partitioned the drive and then all was as it should be.