Need help formatting Hard Drive!

SWirth86

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Aug 31, 2001
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Hi, this is my first time building a computer, and im running into a few problems. I am using a ecs k7s5a motherboard, an 1.2 GHz athlon, a maxtor 40 GB 7200 rpm HD, 256 MB DDR Ram, and an older floppy drive. I have installed the cpu, ram, and i have put in the graphics card(ati all in wonder), the floppy, and now i am trying to install the hard drive. I am using Building a PC for Dummies as a tutorial, and it says i need to use the first disk of the MS-DOS 6.22 installation set to format my hard drive. Is there any way to do this w/o DOS, because i dont have the dos installtion set. Also, when the computer starts, it displays the processor speed as 600 Mhz Athlon, but it is really a 1.2 Ghz Athlon! Any help is greatly appreciated

 

Geekbabe

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I'm assuming you are going to install Win98 or Win98SE ? You need the startup floppy disk which will contain the Fdisk and format tools you need for your drive.
 

SWirth86

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yes, im going to install Windows 98 SE on it. Ok, so just boot the system w/ the floppy in? Also, do you know anything about the CPU problem?
 

SWirth86

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Ok, i put in the floppy, and pressed the power button. It then displays RAM,CPU, and then tries to detect BOOT. It searches for it in the IDE-0, and in the Floppy Drive. It does not find it in either, and says

BOOT Failure
Insert BOOT disk in Drive A
Press any key to continue

ive tried taking the floppy out and putting it back in, but it still doesnt find it. Please help!
 

Geekbabe

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Yes, you boot the systsem with the Win98 startup floppy disk,it'll ask you if you wish to start the computer with cd-rom support,select yes, then you'll need to Fdisk the drive and format it... your book should give you instructions on that as well as explain your partioning options.
 

SWirth86

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When i try to use the WIN 98 SE floppy, it will display

searching for boot record in IDE-0...Not Found
Searching for boot record in floppy ... OK

Disk I/0 error
replace and press any key to continue

it displays the same message when i restarted the computer and tried again
 

Geekbabe

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Are you using a good Win98 startup disk ? Check by turning off the computer you are using now, inserting the startup disk and turning on the computer.
 

SWirth86

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when i restarted my computer with the Win 98 se Boot Disk in, it displayed the same message

I/0 error
replace disk and press any key to continue

so, i guess that that would mean the boot floppy is bad?
 

Geekbabe

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You are either going to need to make a Win98 startup disk or you are going to need to enter the bios and configure the bios to boot Win98 from the cd-rom.
 

MajinWade

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I/o error sometimes mean your floppy drive or cable is bad. Try switching the cable and see what happens.
 

lowtech1

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Make sure you have the device plug in the appropriate slots, and the HDD jumper set to Master.

Boot into the BIOS and select frist boot device is floppy or CDROM, then save the settings and reboot.

Reboot with Win9.x boot floppy in drive or CDROM depending on which device you have selected as frist boot device.

At promt use FDISK command to partition your drive, slect large disk support and make C: drive the Primary Active partition.

Reboot the puter and use FORMAT /Q command to format your partition.

After the format change the directory to the appropriate CDrom drive, ie. CD D: , then SETUP

Or you could just reboot with the CDrom in the drive & CDrom as frist boot in the BIOS...then folow the install Wizard.


 

joshg

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Jul 3, 2001
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OK let's see... about your CPU, make sure that you set any/all jumpers to what they are supposed to be (I.E. is your processor 200 or 266MHz FSB? if it's 266, then set the appropriate CPU jumper on your motherboard to 133MHz, otherwise it's on 100MHz) Also, make sure that your multiplier is set right (I think it's 9 for a 1.2ghz 266fsb chip??) and go into your BIOS and make sure everything is right, also, front side bus, and multiplier, etc.

Also, for booting up, if you are booting to IDE-0 this is wrong, I believe IDE-0 is the channel for your Hard Drive, which obviously contains no data. You need to go into your BIOS and set the boot order to where it boots to either floppy or CDRom first, but definitely make sure that floppy comes before IDE-0 if you are using the 98se setup disk.

Also another thing, in order to format your hard drive with the Windows 98 setup disk you will have to add some files onto the disk that aren't already on there from the manufacturer. These are format.com, fdisk.exe and I always add edit.com just in case something goes bad (with edit you can edit files in DOS-based text editor, good for things like Autoexec.bat, etc).

Also, if you are getting an error for i/o on the floppy... look at the light on the floppy drive, is it constantly shining no matter what, or does it only come on when the drive is reading? if it is constantly shining, you have the cable plugged into the drive backwards, and need to flip it upside-down.

OK, after all of that this is what I recommend you do...


1.) Fix your CPU stuff like I mentioned earlier
2.) Go into your BIOS and set floppy drive to boot first, then CDrom, then hard drive (IDE-0)
3.) restart computer with your modified Windows 98 Setup floppy disk in, when it asks what you want to do tell it to start the computer without CDROM support.
4.) when you receive the prompt for A:> then you need to type fdisk. follow the instructions blah blah blah and creat your Primary DOS partition and make it active.
5.) restart your computer after FDisk tells you to by pressing CTRL+ALT+DEL
6.) repeat step 3. and then this time when you get to a: prompt type in "format c:"
7.) ok, now you should have a formatted drive. Take out the floppy after everything is done (I.E., you're back to the ready A:> prompt), insert the Win98 CD into the drive, then restart the computer again.
8.) you should probably see the exact same message from the CD that was on the floppy. This time select to start windows 98 setup from CDrom, and then it's pretty simple after that


Hope this helps, let me know if you run into trouble, you can PM me if you want. :D
 

SWirth86

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Aug 31, 2001
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Alright, i eventually got my HD formatted by using the Win 98 Se boot disk. It turned out that the cable was on backwards which would be the reason for the I/O error(thanks Majin Wade). I fooled around in the BIOS, until I found the section that contained CPU Speed. It was set on reserve, but i could change it to 100/100 100/133 or 133/133. At First i was like WHAT? WHere's the 1200 Mhz setting?? But then i realized that it was probably talking about the FSB, so i set it on 133/133 (thanks joshg) And when it restarted, it says 1200 mhz, so every thing is cool now. Thanks to Everybody(baffled2, Viper0329, lowtech, plus those i already mentioned) who helped me with my troubles!!!