I give up...

[Twistin'Ghost]

(sigh) I just cannot take this poor system performance any longer. I surrender and will finally re-install W98SE after more than two years of daily degrading of performance. Presently, my system crashes about ten times a day - usually the BSOD VXD variety. M$ is, of course, no help in troubleshooting since they haven't a clue what causes system crashes (their site is, however, smack full of guesses!)

In CA, I would just have one of my roommates do the dirty for me but now I am solo and have to fend for myself. What this means is I haven't a clue how to go about this. Do I have to re-format the drive? Have a backup disk? I just don't know. I have gone through and made a list of all of my installed apps and now must take this list and dig up all of my setups and burn them to a CD so that I can spend days trying to return my system to the way I have it now. That list is pretty big, but oh well...I'll deal with it. I really need a step-by-step here. I'll probably also go ahead and buy a new gfx card, since the one that I got with the computer is unidentifiable by any software (I just installed Diamond Stealth drivers that work, albeit poorly). What card should I get? I don't need all of that fancy shit for games playing, although I think I'll have a difficult time finding a card that is not brimming with features for games (sigh again).

For the record, I still have my WB3.x installation on my A2000 from 1995 and have never had anything close to the need for re-installation. Mind you, I haven't used this box much for the last two years, but up to that time, that system was in heavy use day and night.

Any other suggestions from you PC geeks? :D

[RetroMan]

You don´t need to format your HD :) It´s less painfull to just boot into DOS from Disk and delete your WINDOWS Directory ! After that be sure to also delete all the start files from C: itself (like AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS) .... Then just boot from Win98 Startdisk with CDRom Driver and start the setup.exe from your CD ....

Hmmm, gfxcard .... hmmm .... If you want to get one cheap, try to get a GeForce1 with 32MB from EBay, they are really cheap and can handle allmost everything, from the past as well as todays "modern" software ! I have an Elsa Erazor X here and never had any problems, not with any emulator and not with any other software/game I have on my PeCe ;)

[Twistin'Ghost]

So, how do I make a W98 startdisk w/CD drivers?

As for the gfx card, I need something that I can go buy in the next day or two. Are these GeForce1 cards common in shops?

[RetroMan]

Hmmm, I guess GeForce 1 cards are too old to be common, but if you´re lucky, you´ll get one ..... If you´re out of luck and you don´t really care for 3D (I know you don´t :p ) get a cheap GeForce 2 MX 400, you´ll be fine with that ....

For the start disk, go to your SYSTEMCONTROL ---> SOFTWARE and choose STARTDISK and CREATE (hope that´s so, cause I only got the german Win98 :D ) .... be sure to test it, if it works with your CDRom or not :)

[Twistin'Ghost]

Hmmm...I don't seem to have any of that. Anyone know how to make this disk from a US copy of W98?

[Belgarath]

you may not even have to create a bootdisk, check in your bios, see if you can boot from cd, then insert the win98se cd, and if thats a bootable cd (it should be) then there you go :)

however it may be better to boot from floppy, as i dont think all the needed files are available to hand on the cd, in fact you may need to copy certain files onto the bootdisk as i cant remember everything it gives you, make sure you have deltree.exe and attrib.exe, also deleting your windows directory from dos takes a while, the biggest culprit is IE history so clear this out from windows first! it will make the deletion from dos a lot quicker, dont forget to save your favourites if needed, and if you use outlook express, emails are stored in
C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\Identities\{some sort of serial number}\Microsoft\Outlook Express
and the address book is stored in
C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\Microsoft\Address Book

these can be copied to another directory and safely copied back into the new windows directory when youve installed it

[Belgarath]

Start Menu > Settings > Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs
then just click on the startup disk tab

[jmmijo]

Unfortunately I've not seen a Win98SE bootable CD, unless it's one of the proprietary OEM restore CD's :( Not until WinME did the CD become bootable for the retail release. As for creating a Startup Floppy Disk, open the Control Panel, then open Add/Remove Programs, then click on the Startup tab and you should see a button to create this disk. It will format you disk for you if it's unformmated! This disk should then have a custom menu option with one being for CD-ROM support!

As for the video card, I too like the GeForce 2 MX cards, they are pretty cheap now and a new one is less then $100, check out www.pricewatch.com for more info on these.

[RetroMan]

Originally posted by Belgarath
Start Menu > Settings > Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs
then just click on the startup disk tab
Thats the one :) It´s a bit renamed on a german version :laughing :laughing :laughing

[Djay]

i tend re-format my primary hard-drive every six months or so.

i once installed C&C tiberian sun, for a 2d game it ran very poorly, even when i defraged etc... i then re-installed win98SE the game about 8 times faster!!!

i push all my data files over to my secondary hard-drive.

not sure about deleting windows and leaving everything else there...

what the other programs and registry?

[RetroMan]

Originally posted by Djay
what the other programs and registry?
The registry will be killed with the WINDOWS Dir :) All other data will remain at it´s place, but most of the software must be re-installed cause of the deleted registry, but you can keep your data stored on C: that way :)

[Belgarath]

the registry goes, thats the root of all evil anyway :)
as for the other programs, a lot will need reinstalling, always back up the install zip or exe! some wont, but for the ones that do need reinstalling you can normally install directly over the old copy and it will be fine.

[DPainter]

First of all, is your 98SE CD a full CD, an upgrade CD, a MS OEM CD, or a system CD from a PC manufacturer like HP? Or is it a copy and you're not sure? ;)

Do you have a second hard drive? If not, is your primary drive partitioned into more than one drive letter (C)? If yes, you have a great backup solution if there's room on the partition. If no...

...then I recommend installing from scratch (assuming your 98SE cd is a full/OEM or System CD version). Although you might get away with re-installing and keeping most of your existing files, all registry entries for those apps will be missing from the re-install. My experience tells me that if you upgrade crap, you end up with more crap.

To simplify all of this, let's assume you've backed up every important data file to a CDR or second hard drive. You are then free to reformat your hard drive and re-install Windows. This can be done with the startup disk, which contains CD-ROM drivers and basic tools like fdisk and format.

Let us know more details about your 98SE and storage space.

I'd use this as an excuse to buy a nice new HDD (not IBM, of course) and make it the new MASTER drive, then delegate your old drive to SLAVE status. That way you don't have to hassle with backups, and you now have a fast new drive to install Windows 98SE on.

[Fissuras]

Just go to Bootdisk and download one! That is the easiest way.

http://www.bootdisk.com/

or here:

http://www.mirrors.org/archived_software/www.bootdisk.com/original.htm

All disks include universal cdrom drivers and utilities

You may do a google search also.

http://www.google.com.br/search?q=boot+disk+cd+windows&hl=pt&btnG=Pesquisa+Google&lr=

[Fissuras]

Well, the bootdisks are all there, ready to be downloaded. it couldn't be easier, could it be?

When I am having this kind of trouble, I like do delete as much files as possible. Then, I do a speeddisk/desfragmentation session to clean up and better organize the files. Then I kill Windoze directory, boot to dos and reinstall everything.

If you are in a mood to format c:, please do so! a quick format and you have a spanking new computer.

I like to have two drives also, one for the data, downloads, games that came an go, roms, emulators, pictures *cough*, and all kind of garbage. The other with the more stable(?) software, like Office, Nero, Windoze (of course)... you know, programs that are not changing frequently.

But if you have only one HD you may consider partitioning it.. a small one (3 Gb) for windows and other programs, and the rest... for the rest.

An always remember to install the motherboard drives. without them, my PC access the HD as a 16 Mb/s maximum. When I install the Via drives, the Ata 100 feature is turned on... so 100Mb/s (maximum in theory. in practice, much less).

Oh, while you are at Bootdisk, check the TOP TEN TUNEUP TIPS

http://www.bootdisk.com/topten.htm

[Fissuras]

There is a guide in bootdisk, teaching you to do a bootable disk.

"HOW TO MAKE A BOOTDISK FOR YOUR PC"

(modified by me)

The easiest way to make a simple bootdisk for your Win 95/98 computer is to type (at the dos prompt) sys a: (you may need to be at the root directory)

... blahblahblah ...

Ok, suppose you tried doing it manually, and already did a sys a:, or made a bootdisk with windows and it still doesn't see your cdrom and you're at the end of your rope. You can download shebang2 to an empty folder on your hard drive, click on it, and just copy the extracted files to your bootfloppy.

http://www.bootdisk.com/dosfiles/shebang2.exe

Supplemental Note #1: To make a better Windows 98 bootdisk then the one that came with your Windows CD, put in your CD and seek out \tools\mtsutil\fat32ebd\fat32ebd.exe and double click on the file

"I WANT MY CDROM TO WORK IN DOS"

Use cdindos.exe to install universal CDrom drivers to config.sys and autoexec.bat. Download and click on the file to make a cdrom setup disk. Once the disk is made you can use it on any computer to setup the CDrom to work in DOS.

http://www.bootdisk.com/dosfiles/cdindos.exe

Anyway, enough of that! try whatever you like and see if it works

[Paul]

Also this web site has step-by-step guides on reinstalling Windows.

http://www.windowsreinstall.com/

And some more info

http://www.onecomputerguy.com/

Hope it helps;)

[Twistin'Ghost]

Thanks for the links, Paul (windowsreinstall.com - LOL!). And thanks also to fissuras for all those links which I'll have a look at. And to everyone else for the overwhelming amount of input.

It may take me a couple of days to be ready to do this while I gather up my setups, try to get a new gfx card, find some floppy disks, etc. :D

Plus I need to find where I put my Win98 CD at!

Although I'll lose all of the accompanying settings and keys, I welcome the registry being wiped. I once downloaded a shareware tool that bragged about how it will wipe away all of the dead links in the registry, so I tried it out. It located a massive load of non-existant paths and links and placed them on a huge page. It then asked if I wanted to kill all of them or select certain ones. I spent hours selecting which ones for it to blow away and when I clicked for it to do so, it gave me a shareware message saying it could only delete five of them in the trial version. Nowhere in the docs or installer or anywhere else did it indicate this restriction. I hope the programmer of that software dies broke!

@Djay
Every six months?! Sheesh! Could PC's possibly suck any more?

@DPainter
I believe my W98 CD is a full CD (copy). And yes, I have a second hard drive (or at least I am supposed to...it's possible that he just partioned the drives). I was certain I bought a 40gig drive (that my roomie installed for me), but Windows tells me the total size is 25.4GB?!? Anyhow, I probably will be better off reformatting the drive and reinstalling clean. I will assume those links give instructions on how to do the fdisk thing and all that (I haven't mucked with that crap in eons!)

I will probably wait until payday and just pick up a new HD anyhow, since I don't trust this drive anyhow (and it's small). Since I already have two (alleged) drives in operation, would it be best to make the boot disk, turn the machine off and replace my C: drive with the new one and start from there?

BTW: is there any way I can check (via Windows) to see which hard drive(s) are installed in my machine? It's clear I don't know a damn thing about PC's...

[Paul]

Originally posted by Twistin'Ghost
I believe my W98 CD is a full CD (copy). And yes, I have a second hard drive (or at least I am supposed to...it's possible that he just partioned the drives). I was certain I bought a 40gig drive (that my roomie installed for me), but Windows tells me the total size is 25.4GB?!? Anyhow, I probably will be better off reformatting the drive and reinstalling clean. I will assume those links give instructions on how to do the fdisk thing and all that (I haven't mucked with that crap in eons!)

Well when I had my 80gig HD installed it only detected 11gig when formatted so I was told by the person who built my PC that he had to update my BIOS and partition it into two 40gigs.

I once downloaded a shareware tool that bragged about how it will wipe away all of the dead links in the registry, so I tried it out. It located a massive load of non-existant paths and links and placed them on a huge page. It then asked if I wanted to kill all of them or select certain ones. I spent hours selecting which ones for it to blow away and when I clicked for it to do so, it gave me a shareware message saying it could only delete five of them in the trial version. Nowhere in the docs or installer or anywhere else did it indicate this restriction. I hope the programmer of that software dies broke!

I use EasyCleaner for this, and best of all it's freeware.
http://www.listsoft.com/program.php?id=2968

BTW: is there any way I can check (via Windows) to see which hard drive(s) are installed in my machine? It's clear I don't know a damn thing about PC's...

Errr.....check my computer:confused

[Twistin'Ghost]

Originally posted by Paul
Well when I had my 80gig HD installed it only detected 11gig when formatted so I was told by the person who built my PC that he had to update my BIOS and partition it into two 40gigs.
Could PC's possibly suck any more? (I am gonna put this on a t-shirt!) No wonder I can't get anywhere learning this stupid box! I could learn to program 68000 assembler faster...
Originally posted by Paul
I use EasyCleaner for this, and best of all it's freeware.
Downloaded. Will check it out. Thanks for the tip!

[Twistin'Ghost]

@DPainter
Almost forgot...off-topic, but I have to say this: your new avatar is very likely the most creative one I have seen yet. The merging of the Amiga boing ball into the fro is a (different) stroke of genius!

[Shadowfire]

Originally posted by RetroMan
You don´t need to format your HD :) It´s less painfull to just boot into DOS from Disk and delete your WINDOWS Directory ! After that be sure to also delete all the start files from C: itself (like AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS) .... Then just boot from Win98 Startdisk with CDRom Driver and start the setup.exe from your CD ....

Ah, when I was in my "gotta reinstall windows again..." phase (when I was upgrading my system every other week), I found something SHITLOADS faster than THAT (deleting all those files under DOS).. if you have the space, that is...

REN WINDOWS WIN
REN PROGRA~1 PF

Then reinstall to C:\WINDOWS... once you're back in windows, delete the WIN/PF directories. This is MUCH less painful than retroman's suggestion, and as a bonus you can copy your favorites back to your Windows directory before killing the directory.

[Djay]

if you've gotta get rid of windows and all yours app, re-install windows and your apps, then only thing left is your data files, which normally are small compared to the rest, so formating your hard-drive, would shave about 10 minutes of your total restore time...

... and then of course a defrag would also have to be included anyway...

... at least with a format you know any viruses etc... will be gone.

[Shadowfire]

Originally posted by Twistin'Ghost
It may take me a couple of days to be ready to do this while I gather up my setups, try to get a new gfx card, find some floppy disks, etc. :D

The Geforce2MX (as was suggested) is a great card for its price. Given the information that you've posted, you have either Win98OSR2.0(OEM), Win98OSR2.5(OEM), or Win98SE (all of the versions which shipped with FAT32 (large hard disk) support).

This should go without saying, but make sure your boot disk works AND you can access your CDROM from DOS before starting your reinstall. Also, if you still are having crash problems immediately after reinstalling Windows (but before installing any 3rd party device drivers), then its time to take the machine to the shop for diagnosis & repair.

Although I'll lose all of the accompanying settings and keys, I welcome the registry being wiped. I once downloaded a shareware tool that bragged about how it will wipe away all of the dead links in the registry, so I tried it out. It located a massive load of non-existant paths and links and placed them on a huge page. It then asked if I wanted to kill all of them or select certain ones. I spent hours selecting which ones for it to blow away and when I clicked for it to do so, it gave me a shareware message saying it could only delete five of them in the trial version. Nowhere in the docs or installer or anywhere else did it indicate this restriction. I hope the programmer of that software dies broke!

Actually, considering that you've stated that you're not at all familiar with Windows, you probably shouldn't be screwing around with the registry -- especially in this manner. You can easily hose your system to the point of no return by monkeying around with it (i.e. mandatory reinstall). If you have detailed instructions on a registry change to fix or change something, thats one thing, but just deleting keys because you (or a program) think that they are unneeded is begging for trouble.

I believe my W98 CD is a full CD (copy). And yes, I have a second hard drive (or at least I am supposed to...it's possible that he just partioned the drives). I was certain I bought a 40gig drive (that my roomie installed for me), but Windows tells me the total size is 25.4GB?!? Anyhow, I probably will be better off reformatting the drive and reinstalling clean. I will assume those links give instructions on how to do the fdisk thing and all that (I haven't mucked with that crap in eons!)

FYI... when a hard disk manufacturer states "40 gigabytes" they mean literally 40,000,000,000 bytes. However, Windows uses "computer" memory notation (where 1 Gigabyte = 2^30 (1,073,741,824) bytes.. so if a disk had 40GB, Windows would say that it in fact has 37.25GB. On top of this Windows won't report space taken up by the file system for the FAT as available space, either. If your drive's total size shows as 25.4GB, its probably a 27GB drive (or perhaps partitioned incorrectly).

I will probably wait until payday and just pick up a new HD anyhow, since I don't trust this drive anyhow (and it's small). Since I already have two (alleged) drives in operation, would it be best to make the boot disk, turn the machine off and replace my C: drive with the new one and start from there?

Umm... do you know anything about IDE, especially MASTER & SLAVE settings? If not, make sure you read up on that before you proceed. Some pointers:

1. Some hard disks (Western Digital) have 3 settings; MASTER, SLAVE, and "MASTER ONLY". The MASTER ONLY setting is required when the drive is the only device on that IDE channel (and you must not use MASTER ONLY if you have another drive on the same channel).

2. Make sure that your boot disk works before even opening up the machine.

3. I'd suggest setting the new drive to "Master" and the old drive to "Slave", and moving the CDROM drive to the secondary IDE channel.

4. Also, once you swap drives out, the very first thing you must do is go into the BIOS and use the "DETECT IDE" option on all channels, then save.

5. Be VERY careful with fdisk; you CAN easily toast all information on your hard disk. A brand new drive WILL NOT have any partitions on it when you first install it.

BTW: is there any way I can check (via Windows) to see which hard drive(s) are installed in my machine? It's clear I don't know a damn thing about PC's...

Go into the Device Manager (right click on the System or My Computer icon then click properties, or go into the control panel and click on System) and expand the "Disk Drives" line.

[Twistin'Ghost]

Originally posted by Shadowfire
Given the information that you've posted, you have either Win98OSR2.0(OEM), Win98OSR2.5(OEM), or Win98SE (all of the versions which shipped with FAT32 (large hard disk) support).
I am inclined to think that my CD is Win98SE. And my drives are all set to FAT32.

This should go without saying, but make sure your boot disk works AND you can access your CDROM from DOS before starting your reinstall. Also, if you still are having crash problems immediately after reinstalling Windows (but before installing any 3rd party device drivers), then its time to take the machine to the shop for diagnosis & repair.
Yeah, I'd already planned on checking my bootdisk first! :) If I am having crash problems after the reinstall, it's probably bad memory. The crashing happens as usage degrades the performance after a reboot. However another type of problem I have that can occur at any time is in two different flavors. I use ACDSee and sometimes it will just crash for no reason with the usual Windows illegal function popup. Sometimes for no reason at all (even if just sitting idle in the background, other times when I simply change directories). The second flavor occurs with Agent. I can't just set downloads and go do something else. Every several files or several megs of decoded binaries, I get a (recoverable) blue screen. I just hit any key and it returns me to Windows, I reload Agent and go through it all again. It's ultra annoying. Needless to say, floods are worthless to me in this state. This is a fairly recent issue (well, it's gotten worse over the last six months...ever since I uninstalled Office, which has caused other problems, as well...)

Actually, considering that you've stated that you're not at all familiar with Windows, you probably shouldn't be screwing around with the registry -- especially in this manner. You can easily hose your system to the point of no return by monkeying around with it (i.e. mandatory reinstall). If you have detailed instructions on a registry change to fix or change something, thats one thing, but just deleting keys because you (or a program) think that they are unneeded is begging for trouble.
I have modified registry setting at home and at work before. But in the case I described, a registry cleaner was being used. And even then, that was my point was that I was very selective about which links to remove. I went through the entire massive generated list and only asked it to remove the dead links which I knew were of no consequence. They were pretty obvious, ie, programs no longer installed, paths that no longer exist, etc.

FYI... when a hard disk manufacturer states "40 gigabytes" they mean literally 40,000,000,000 bytes. However, Windows uses "computer" memory notation (where 1 Gigabyte = 2^30 (1,073,741,824) bytes.. so if a disk had 40GB, Windows would say that it in fact has 37.25GB. On top of this Windows won't report space taken up by the file system for the FAT as available space, either. If your drive's total size shows as 25.4GB, its probably a 27GB drive (or perhaps partitioned incorrectly).
OK, My Computer reports these Total Sizes:

C: 5.99GB
D: 25.4GB

Kinda sounds to me like one drive partitioned.

Umm... do you know anything about IDE, especially MASTER & SLAVE settings? If not, make sure you read up on that before you proceed. Some pointers:[SNIP]
Well, my 40GB drive is Western Digital. I should assume that when he installed it (and if it is the only HD), that he set it to MASTER ONLY. Is there a reference to which jumper settings are for which? My box for the drive is still in CA.

4. Also, once you swap drives out, the very first thing you must do is go into the BIOS and use the "DETECT IDE" option on all channels, then save.

5. Be VERY careful with fdisk; you CAN easily toast all information on your hard disk. A brand new drive WILL NOT have any partitions on it when you first install it.
I'm pretty sure DETECT IDE is already set. I'm not exactly sure how to create partitions, but if I keep my 40GB drive and add, say, a 80GB drive as C:, I should probably create at least two 40GB partitions. Will this conflict with my existing drive letters or will they automatically increment? Or will it allow me to modify this as I go?

Which reminds me. When my friend installed my CD ROM drive, he set it to drive letter Y: (so I could later add a CD burner as Z:, I presume). So when my brother installed my CD burner, he wasn't sure how to do this and thus the drive became E: - how can I change the letter definitions?

Go into the Device Manager (right click on the System or My Computer icon then click properties, or go into the control panel and click on System) and expand the "Disk Drives" line.
OK, I did both of those before, but it only gave generic or driver information. Is there something that can ID the manufacturer and drive stats (like whether it is an actual drive or partition, etc.)

Thanks for the help!

[jmmijo]

Originally posted by Twistin'Ghost
[B]I am inclined to think that my CD is Win98SE. And my drives are all set to FAT32.

They have to be FAT32 as FAT16 only supports partition sizes up to 2.1GB!


OK, My Computer reports these Total Sizes:

C: 5.99GB
D: 25.4GB

Kinda sounds to me like one drive partitioned.

Sounds like it to me as well. Almost sounds like a 30GB hard drive. Perhaps your mobo bios will not see the entire 40GB but I think if you do indeed have a 40GB hard drive, there should be about 8-10GB left to partition. Try this really quick test:

Click on the Start button, then select Run, then type in command on the command line and press the OK button or press the enter key. Now you should have a command prompt window, type in the command fdisk and press the "Y" key for large disk support. Once fdisk is loaded you can view the current hard drive partition(s) and what type they are, primary and/or logical drives can also be displayed from here without doing anything to the drive are partitions themselves! Once you view what is on the drive the total should come out to about 40GB or 100%. If this total only comes to about 30GB then the drive could be smaller then you thought or simply the mobo bios can only see this drive size.

Well, my 40GB drive is Western Digital. I should assume that when he installed it (and if it is the only HD), that he set it to MASTER ONLY. Is there a reference to which jumper settings are for which? My box for the drive is still in CA.

You can view the jumper settings from the label on top of the drive, most manufacturers put this there for easy configuration, also there is a printed mark on the circuit board side of the ahrd drive, it should say something like, MA(master), SL(slave), CS(cable select) and possibly some other diag positions that you can ignore!

I'm pretty sure DETECT IDE is already set. I'm not exactly sure how to create partitions, but if I keep my 40GB drive and add, say, a 80GB drive as C:, I should probably create at least two 40GB partitions. Will this conflict with my existing drive letters or will they automatically increment? Or will it allow me to modify this as I go?

Since you are creating new partitions, then drive letters will change. The way it works is kinda funky, the first partiton of the first physical drive gets the first letter available, C:, then the first partition of the second physical drive gets the next letter, D:, then each subsequent partition on this second physical drive gets the remaining free drive letters until all the partitions have been assigned. Now we can go back to the first physical hard drive and assign drive letters to any remaining partitions there :(

Man when I first was learning messydos, I was floored by this quirk!

Which reminds me. When my friend installed my CD ROM drive, he set it to drive letter Y: (so I could later add a CD burner as Z:, I presume). So when my brother installed my CD burner, he wasn't sure how to do this and thus the drive became E: - how an I change the letter definitions?

Under Win 9x or pretty much most Win 32 OS's, there is an option under the drive properties, it's usually called settings, for enabling/disabling DMA and also the first and last drive letter assignment, check out the Device Manager tab under the System Control Panel applet!

OK, I did both of those before, but it only gave generic or driver information. Is there something that can ID the manufacturer and drive stats (like whether it is an actual drive or partition, etc.)

You can also check out a really nice app called Partition Magic, I highly recommend it for any novice partition user. It's a GUI based app and has the ability to enlarge and resize partitions and a way to create bootable dos based diskettes for new hard drive partitioning!!!

[Twistin'Ghost]

Originally posted by jmmijo
Sounds like it to me as well. Almost sounds like a 30GB hard drive.
It is. I talked to Chuck tonight and he says the drive is 30GB. And he said C: was just some 6GB drive. Dunno why I thought otherwise. They say the brain is the first thing to go... :D

Try this really quick test: [SNIP] Once fdisk is loaded you can view the current hard drive partition(s) and what type they are, primary and/or logical drives can also be displayed from here without doing anything to the drive are partitions themselves!
OK, I did that, but could only get info on C: I even tried CD'ing to D: and running it again, but it would only talk C: with me.

Under Win 9x or pretty much most Win 32 OS's, there is an option under the drive properties, it's usually called settings, for enabling/disabling DMA and also the first and last drive letter assignment, check out the Device Manager tab under the System Control Panel applet!
Hehe...that is correct. He told me that on the phone, too. There was a time when I knew this, but it's just been so long! But thanks. This thread is great reference! And my burner is now Z: !

You can also check out a really nice app called Partition Magic, I highly recommend it for any novice partition user. It's a GUI based app and has the ability to enlarge and resize partitions and a way to create bootable dos based diskettes for new hard drive partitioning!!!
LOL! He told me that, too. He'd sent me Partition Magic before anyhow and I just never used it. That and Drive Image. I considered imaging the drive and restoring that to the new drive I get, but I fear the OS installation has just been toasted from usage, although the physical drive itself may be in poor shape, as well (it used to make a nasty knocking noise from time to time and it still makes tiny knocking sounds every now and again). I know this is bad news and have some idea in my mind that the drive loses its frequency and causes erratic behavior not unlike what I am experiencing now. Either way, I need a fresh install and a new drive.

Thanks for all the other info, btw!

[jmmijo]

Originally posted by Twistin'Ghost
[B]It is. I talked to Chuck tonight and he says the drive is 30GB. And he said C: was just some 6GB drive. Dunno why I thought otherwise. They say the brain is the first thing to go... :D{/quote]

Ah, mystery solved, now we can rest easier ;)

[quote]OK, I did that, but could only get info on C: I even tried CD'ing to D: and running it again, but it would only talk C: with me.

This usually indicates that the partition flag, the one that says hey I'm FAT16 or FAT32 could be corrupted. There are flags on the partition that tells whatever OS the type of partition it is, NTFS, HPFS, Linux EXT/EXT2/SWAP, etc...

Hehe...that is correct. He told me that on the phone, too. There was a time when I knew this, but it's just been so long! But thanks. This thread is great reference! And my burner is now Z: !

It is, isn't it :laughing

LOL! He told me that, too. He'd sent me Partition Magic before anyhow and I just never used it. That and Drive Image. I considered imaging the drive and restoring that to the new drive I get, but I fear the OS installation has just been toasted from usage, although the physical drive itself may be in poor shape, as well (it used to make a nasty knocking noise from time to time and it still makes tiny knocking sounds every now and again). I know this is bad news and have some idea in my mind that the drive loses its frequency and causes erratic behavior not unlike what I am experiencing now. Either way, I need a fresh install and a new drive.

I'm beginning to think I'm a freakin' parrot here :D as for the drive noise, that sounds like the head mechanism, the part that moves it across the surface of the platters, well actually it flys across the surface on a cushion of air otherwise disaster would insue :), this is an indication of imminent hard drive failure. I've got some older WD drives in my 4000 right now, I scavenged from old PC's and they could go at any time as well. Hard drives are pretty damn cheap so get a nice 40 - 80GB and you should get a UDMA 100 running at 7200 RPM, you will notice the difference for sure.

[Twistin'Ghost]

Originally posted by jmmijo
This usually indicates that the partition flag, the one that says hey I'm FAT16 or FAT32 could be corrupted. There are flags on the partition that tells whatever OS the type of partition it is, NTFS, HPFS, Linux EXT/EXT2/SWAP, etc...
Well, apparently neither drive is partitioned. For the C: drive, it gave this info:
Status: A
Type: PRI DOS
Volume Label: MP3
Mbytes: 6150
System: FAT32
Usage: 100%
Total Disk Space is: 6150 Mbytes

Should it be reporting this info on my D: drive, as well?

I've got some older WD drives in my 4000 right now, I scavenged from old PC's and they could go at any time as well. Hard drives are pretty damn cheap so get a nice 40 - 80GB and you should get a UDMA 100 running at 7200 RPM, you will notice the difference for sure.
Are WD drives just short-lived? A friend of mine had the head die on his new 80GB drive after only a few weeks, which makes me nervous. I heard the 7200 RPM drives are fast, but have a shorter lifespan than the 5400 RPM drives (which are getting more scarce these days).

[jmmijo]

Originally posted by Twistin'Ghost
[B]Well, apparently neither drive is partitioned. For the C: drive, it gave this info:
Status: A
Type: PRI DOS
Volume Label: MP3
Mbytes: 6150
System: FAT32
Usage: 100%
Total Disk Space is: 6150 Mbytes

Should it be reporting this info on my D: drive, as well?

Not quite, but close. The status flag is the active partition, the bootable one :) The type means it's a primary DOS partition, either FAT16 or FAT32, in this case FAT32 as it says the system type as well. Volume label, well you know what that is ;) Usage in this case means how much of the total physical space is used, this is because it's a PRI DOS partition and not an extended partition which can be sub-divided up into many logical drives, get it.

Are WD drives just short-lived? A friend of mine had the head die on his new 80GB drive after only a few weeks, which makes me nervous. I heard the 7200 RPM drives are fast, but have a shorter lifespan than the 5400 RPM drives (which are getting more scarce these days).

Nope, nor more or less then any other manufacturer. I've had drives from many different manufacturers, Maxtor, IBM, Seagate, as well as Western Digital. What to look for, two things, the warranty period, usually 3 - 5 years and the MTBF or Mean Time Before Failure rate, usually measured in continuous hours of operation. So what does this mean, well of you left the HD running 24/7 how long would the drive be expected to continue to function normally?

For instance if a drive had a MTBF of 100,000 hours, then divide this by 24 and you get 4167(rounded off) days or about 11.41 years. Hmm, I still have an old 3.5" Seagate SCSI that's at least that old and still keeps running, I've dropped it a couple of times and it still goes :laugh

Users out there, especially old timers like me, may remember hard drives from companies like Rodime, Conner and Miniscribe. Well, most of these companies were purchased from the bigger fish, like Seagate bought Conner for instance and I believe that Miniscribe was purchased from Maxtor.

Have a good look around for hard drives, check out pricewatch.com and others for a good idea of what the prices are for OEM vs. Retail boxed drives.

[DPainter]

Originally posted by Twistin'Ghost
I believe my W98 CD is a full CD (copy). And yes, I have a second hard drive (or at least I am supposed to...it's possible that he just partioned the drives). I was certain I bought a 40gig drive (that my roomie installed for me), but Windows tells me the total size is 25.4GB?!? Anyhow, I probably will be better off reformatting the drive and reinstalling clean. I will assume those links give instructions on how to do the fdisk thing and all that (I haven't mucked with that crap in eons!)

I will probably wait until payday and just pick up a new HD anyhow, since I don't trust this drive anyhow (and it's small). Since I already have two (alleged) drives in operation, would it be best to make the boot disk, turn the machine off and replace my C: drive with the new one and start from there?

BTW: is there any way I can check (via Windows) to see which hard drive(s) are installed in my machine? It's clear I don't know a damn thing about PC's... Before this thread grows bigger than MS source code, I will add some brief suggestions to help your process.

1) If you want to save yourself a lot of trouble in the future, get ahold of Symantec Ghost ($19 here (http://www.jcssoftware.com/index.asp?c=1&uid=&p=t_catalog&src=systemworks&x=16&y=9). Whatever you do, don't install the whole Systemworks suite--just Ghost). Using Ghost, you can clone just the C: partition of your new hard drive into a single, compressed file that you can store on another partition/hard drive or even a CDR. When you're all done installing your new C: drive, complete with the latest drivers and applications just how you like them, you can dump an image of that partition and restore it back any time you need to.

2) Download the trial version of HWINFO (http://www.hwinfo.com/). It will tell you exactly what hardware you have. You need to Exit Windows to DOS to run it.

3) Before you re-install, download all the latest drivers for your hardware and store them on a CD or on your old HDD. This part is very important and will help prevent BSOD. In fact, I'd make a Ghost image of your new OS installation *before* you install any third party drivers. That way if you ever get new hardware, you won't need to uninstall old drivers when you're starting from scratch again some day.

I like my new avatar, too. I think I will keep her. I may even nickname her "Mamma Miga"

[jmmijo]

Good info DPainter, and I like the avatar too ;)

EDIT: Ooops, just noticed a buffer overrun in this thread, time for a new patch :laugh :laughing :laugh

[Shadowfire]

Originally posted by Twistin'Ghost
I have modified registry setting at home and at work before. But in the case I described, a registry cleaner was being used. And even then, that was my point was that I was very selective about which links to remove. I went through the entire massive generated list and only asked it to remove the dead links which I knew were of no consequence. They were pretty obvious, ie, programs no longer installed, paths that no longer exist, etc.

Still dangerous. But this is the way the registry works, if people don't use the add/remove programs option to uninstall their software, all the registry keys are still there (sometimes even uninstall doesn't kill the keys). MS suggests that if an application is uninstalled, that custom settings should NOT be deleted. That way if you decide to go back & reinstall, you never lost all your old settings/saved games.

Well, my 40GB drive is Western Digital. I should assume that when he installed it (and if it is the only HD), that he set it to MASTER ONLY. Is there a reference to which jumper settings are for which? My box for the drive is still in CA.

If your CDROM & Hard disk are on the same cable, the Hard Disk should be set to "Master" and the CDROM set to "Slave".

If your CDROM & Hard disk are plugged into different cables, your hard disk will be set to "Master Only" and your cd-rom will be set to either Master or Slave (probably Master).

Western Digitalis drives should have the jumper settings on the label on the drive.

I'm pretty sure DETECT IDE is already set. I'm not exactly sure how to create partitions, but if I keep my 40GB drive and add, say, a 80GB drive as C:, I should probably create at least two 40GB partitions. Will this conflict with my existing drive letters or will they automatically increment? Or will it allow me to modify this as I go?

Detect IDE is something you do immediately after changing around IDE devices inside your computer. Before you format, before you fdisk.

Fdisk will automatically assign incremental drive letters to each DOS partition that you create. Your boot partition, however, will always be mapped to "C". AFAIK there is no way to change drive letter with FDISK/DOS. You can rename all your drive letters at will (except for C) under NT (and derivative) OS's with the disk manager service. Windows 9X allow limited drive letter reassignment through the device manager but it is a total pain in the ass and requires several reboots to set things up in the order you want.

Which reminds me. When my friend installed my CD ROM drive, he set it to drive letter Y: (so I could later add a CD burner as Z:, I presume). So when my brother installed my CD burner, he wasn't sure how to do this and thus the drive became E: - how can I change the letter definitions?

Its been MONTHS since I've used Win98, but from if memory serves correctly -

Go into the device manager, expand "CD-ROM device", double-click on the cd-burner, go to the properties page where it has the device letter listed - one of the fields you should be able to type into - change the letter, click on ok, then reboot.