reformatting?

[striker5]

hi i am a little new to computer building, i got the hardware going good, its just the damn software that i can't get to work good. so i am going to reformat. i just need to know how it keeps telling me it can't format c: because i am on it. that seems logical, so how can i format it? i am on win98se
thx

 

[Mapidus]

Boot up with a win98 boot disk and type format c:

 

[striker5]

thx a lot

 

[striker5]

ok well can you tell me ster by step i start with win98se boot disk then i can choose go to win98 setup, start computer with cdrom support or no cdrom support i went no cdrom support and went into dos, typed format c: in the a: prompt didnt work now what???

 

[striker5]

ok do i use a prog called fdisk to format?

 

[striker5]

ok thx for your help i used fdisk to delete my primary dos partition and then started with win98 boot disk and it started formatting, thx

 

[turunturun]

Unfortunately, the boot disk made by WIN98SE doesn't have the format program on it by default. So what I do is start up windows, make the disk by going to add/remove programs, then select the third tab called start up disk and make one. Then you have to go to the C:\Windows\Command directory and manually copy the file called format.com to the disk. Then:
Insert the disk and restart.
Start the computer with CDROM support.
While at the A: prompt type 'format C:'

PS If you have any other hard drives in the computer, make sure to check the contents of the C: drive to make sure it is the drive you want to format. In DOS you get directory listings by typing 'dir/p' while at the location you want to list. So if you are at A:\, type 'C:\', then 'dir/p' and you will get a list. If the list contains the WINDOW~1 <DIR> then it is the drive windows shows as C:.

Turunturun

 

[Colt45]

i usually just boot to a dos disk, as i can never get the win98 disk to work..

 

[42Crashit]

I boot with floppy but format C:/s after fdisk with system files .