Why won't FDISK work on my HD??

[Spoon]

When I go and try to do the 3f's I can only get 2 of them to work

I go through all the usual avenues - delete, create, you know the drill. But when I exit fdisk and try to run windows setup it still tells me that everthing is still there, I go back into FDISK and there it is.

Is this a HDD problem, and if so what are the main downfalls to not fdisking when reinstalling windows.

thanks

 

[Vinny N]

Once you delete and create what you need to, you have to restart for the partitions to take effect.

Then you format, and then you should install windows.

If after the restarting, the partition table hasn't changed, it could be a virus, the stoned empire monkey virus causes that to happen.

Well, personally, I don't fdisk unless I actually have something to change partition wise. A non-quick format does a decent job enough.

 

[Jimbo]

Do you have Windows2000 or NT4?
Are you trying this on an NTFS partition?

Jimbo

 

[Spoon]

Sorry - does it under win98 and win98se

 

[x86guy]

Ahhh..Seen that b4. Be willing to bet that an NTFS partition is on that drive. It's kinda tricky formating that drive especially when an oem has set it up for you with an NTFS partition. Use the Fdisk that comes with OS Win98 vs. 95 or DOS. That seems to work for me. Make sure you restart after each change, as Vinny_N mentioned.

 

[Spoon]

Anyone know of a way to check if there is a virus present??

 

[Caitiff]

Don't know about a virus, but if you have something that is written to the boot sector of the hdd, like a virus, but was used to partition the hdd, like Western Digital's utility, then you will actually have to write zero's to the disk, the fdisk it, then format it. It's a pain when there is partitioning s/w on the drive, but it is something that you can kill. All of the major hdd vendors have a utiltity that you can get that will do the job, or you can use the venerable debug command, if you know the correct string to use.

 

[Spoon]

Caitiff - thanks for the diea, I went to IBM's website and they have a nice little progy that does what you said