Maestro Posted September 23, 2008 Share Posted September 23, 2008 Here's the deal... A friend of mine just bought a new system and gave his old 2002 Hewlit Packard to me. It's running a slightly corruptted OS -Windows ME. I've procurred a 'new' OS for the system and installed it over the original; however, the 'buggy-behaviour' persists (I believe it has something to do with the registry -the number of applications that have been installed and removed, etc. They're just minor gitches, but still: it's enough to warrant 'starting over.') So, I'd like to format the hardrive and install the OS from scratch. I know how to do this; that is, I know how to navigate in DOS; but, I don't have a DOS manual in the event I run into trouble... & The OS I have is on a non-bootable disk. It's in a folder along with other folders, including Windows '98 and addons and such. I've never formatted a hardrive before; so, I don't know whether I will be able to access those folders to reach the Windows Setup application in DOS. What if DOS is wiped out along with everything else? That would not be good. Is there something written in a system's firmware to help it re-inialize itself? How does a PC behave directly off the assembly-line? These are things I know not. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thanx! III. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thesweetscience Posted September 23, 2008 Share Posted September 23, 2008 To load windows 98 off of a non bootable disk you will need a dos boot floppy. Boot to the floppy and use FDisk to format and set up your partitions and then load the cd rom driver and copy over the i386 folder from the cd rom to the hard drive. Then you can do an install. If you remove the partitions and recreate them with FDisk then nothing will be left on the hard drive. If you are still having issues I would suspect some hard ware issues. Is the drive good? Does it click or make unusual noises when it reads and writes? this must be a very old machine so I would suspect hardware issues could be to blame. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maestro Posted September 25, 2008 Author Share Posted September 25, 2008 Many Thanx... ...Most helpful. Mission Accomplished! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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