fdisk, then reformat with 2 drives??

[1Tone57_69]

Hi, I've been a member for a few months but not posted, so here goes with my query, with more to follow in various areas, for sure. My son has a 200mhz P with 32mg of memory and it had several logical drives (which I deleted because it kept crashing/blue screen and such even after reboot), and has two physical hard drives, one is 2 gig, the other is 1.2 gig. I'm trying to fdisk then reformat to put on 98 2nd edition, it has the 1st. The floppy is in when it reboots so it should go to the a:\, but keeps on rebooting in a loop that never ends unless I eject the floppy. Eventually it crashes, which is why I started this in the first place (I might add, it sat for several months before he started to use it regularly). When I initially started and put the floppy in to reboot to delete the logical drives, it worked fine until it had to reboot. It kept going through the boot sequence but would get to the point where it said "starting Windows98" and usually it would go to the a:/, but began the boot process over adn over and over and over, well you get the picture.

What is the proper sequence to fdisk when there are two physical hard drives. Appreciate your help AND ALL of the other things I have learned just by "lurking". This is a COOL place to be a member of. Thanks MUCH

Tone

[markp62]

Fdisk Explained

[Murf]

WELCOME!

Another GREAT source:

Partitioning

Formating

[1Tone57_69]

The info you all (markp62 & murph) led me to is good and all, but does not apply to my situation. There are two hard drives. There were 3 logical drives that I deleted using fdisk. When it asked me to restart the system, that is when the looping began. It would go thru the memory sequence, identifying the hardware, but just as it is about to go back to the floppy to start from the a:\ it did the usual 'Starting Windows 98' line which is when it has always in the past gone to the a:\ when I would fdisk & reformat my computer, but on this computer it starts the booting sequence all over again and continues--I quit after 15 minutes of watching the loop, baffled what to do next. I cannot get to the a:\ to fdisk the hard drive, either one of them.Which is my other question, how do I get to the other hard drive to fdisk & reformat it?

[up_yer_kilt23]

Hello Tone. You could take one HDD out and work on one of them until you get it up and running.

[Nick Grana]

Disable secondary drive in bios.
FDisk Primary drive and set active partition.
Format drive.
Now load Windows.
Then go back and enable secondary drive in bios.
Fdisk and format second drive.
You also need more memory for Windows 98SE.

FYI Hardware Requirements for Windows 98 (SE):
200 MHz or higher processor
Memory: 64 megabytes (MB) of memory; more memory improves performance.
Hard disk: -When using FAT16 File system, typical installation requires 260 MB of available hard-disk space, but may range between 210 MB and 400 MB, depending upon system configuration and options selected -When using FAT32 File system, typical installation requires 210 MB of available hard-disk space, but may range between 190 MB and 305 MB, depending upon system configuration and options selected Typical installation requires approximately 205 MB of free hard-disk space, but may range between 140 MB to 315 MB, depending on your system configuration and the options you choose to install.

Good luck.

[markp62]

In fdisk there should be a listing for Drive 1 and Drive 2, when both drives are hooked up. I am assuming that you have not removed any drives and changed their connections on the ribbons and/or jumper settings on the drives.
For the looping, you may need to clear your CMOS by removing the battery from the motherboard and waiting a few minutes, there is a jumper you can switch to accomplish the same thing, but motherboards are different on this.
Then have your BIOS auto detect your drives.
When Fdisking, and with the size of the drives, it would be okay to create Primary partitions on both, if you give 100% to those partitions and use FAT32. You get FAT32 by Enabling Large Disk Support when Fdisk starts.

[1Tone57_69]

Hey, up_yer_kilt, Nick Grana, and markp62, I think ya all have something there. Light bulb came on in my head when you said disable one of the hard drives first. I will try it in the bios, then physically if need be, but that has a ray of hope to it, I think. It may be a few days before I can get to it, but you'll hear from me. I will keep all posted. Sorry about the delay in responding, personal things going on. Stay REAL all.