fdisk and format Procedure

Subject Index

Check your Windows 98 CD before you start

If you are reformatting your existing hard drive that has windows installed you need to be aware of certain conditions with regards to your ability to re-install windows 98.

1. Your Windows 98 CD may only be an Upgrade version

   If your version of Windows is an "upgrade" version, make sure you have your previous installation disks because setup will ask for them to verify eligibility for upgrade. Since you are about to do a clean install, there will not be a previous operating system installed. This is not a problem as long as you have your previous installation disks. Setup will prompt you accordingly.

   Thus you will require a qualifying product (for example a Windows 95 CD) that you will be requested to insert at the appropriate point in the install procedure.

2. Your CD is actually a RECOVERY CD rather than a Windows 98 CD

   This may be a self installing (bootable CD) or may need a special boot floppy to kick off the recovery process. Make sure that you have them available before you start.

   Note - Some RECOVERY CDs rely on a built in CD-ROM driver. If you have changed your CD-ROM drive since you bought your PC then the built in CD-ROM driver may not match your replaced CD-ROM.

3. You may have a BIOS locked CD

   If you buy a Ready To Run PC, you will probably get a Bios Locked CD. This means your PC's Restore CD will be locked to your PC's Motherboard System Bios.

   This prevents windows being installed on another computer other than the one it came with. This may not be a big problem if you are re-installing on the same PC. However, on a different PC this would be problem.

4. You may have an OEM CD

   Similar considerations apply as in the item above.

5. You may not have a CD at all

   Some PCs were sold with a special hidden partition on the hard drives that contain an image of the Windows and any applications that came pre-installed when you bought your system. This is usually accompanied by a special floppy or boot process that allows you to re-instate your system to "factory" settings.

   This is the worst possible case as you will need to take the utmost care not to delete this special partition when partitioning your hard drive.

   In fact I would advise avoidance if this is the case. I also have no experience with this kind of PC.

6. Have your serial number handy

   Finally if you do have a CD then you will need your windows serial number. Make sure you know it.

   If somehow you have lost your Product Key, it can be obtained from your current installation by looking in the system registry. To find your Product Key, open Regedit and navigate to the following registry key:

   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ MICROSOFT \ WINDOWS \ CURRENTVERSION

   Click on the CurrentVersion key in the left pane of regedit, and in the right pane, scroll until you find the value ProductKey. This is your CD Key (not to be confused with ProductId which is the number Microsoft assigned to you when you registered Windows. This is for Retail Versions). If this is an OEM version, the key will have OEM in it and MAY be called ProductId rather than ProductKey. Write down both values if you are unsure!

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

Pre-Format Check List

TIPS to make your life easier

1. Put your Windows files on the hard drive.

   Copy the whole Win98 directory from your CD-ROM to your hard disk. You need about 173Mb free. Doing this allows you to reinstall Windows from that directory, rather than from the CD-ROM drive. This is faster and it frees you from having to provide the CD every time you change a Windows system setting. Windows remembers where it was installed from, and that is where it will look for its files.

   I suggest that you put it in a drive other than the C: drive. This way if you ever reformat the C: drive you do not have to go searching for that Windows 98 CD. I use D:\win98se.

2. Put your driver files on the hard drive too.

   When you install new hardware, adopt the habit of putting its driver software on to your hard drive. The drivers themselves do not use too much space. Support software comes on floppies or CDs. The actual driver installation directory (generally called something handy like Win9x) is usually quite small.

   I suggest that you put it in a drive other than the C: drive. This way if you ever reformat the C: drive you do not have to go searching for your original driver disks. I use D:\my_drivers.

   This turns the hardware re-detection and re-installation process into a breeze. Whenever Windows wants a driver, just tell it to "Search for a driver...", click Browse, and click through to the subdirectory in D:\my_drivers\ (or wherever you chose to put it) that contains the software or driver you are installing.

About MS-DOS 7 which ships with Windows 98

MS-DOS 7 allows you to use fdisk.exe and format.com to partition and format your hard drives. There are a number of issues you need to be aware of before you start.

Due to a combination of circumstances there are different hard drive limits that kick in. These limits can be a major source of headaches later on if you do not address them before preparing and using your hard drives.

The particular limits that are difficult to overcome are the 127 GB & 137 GB limits respectively.

IT IS IMPORTANT YOU UNDERSTAND THESE LIMITS FULLY BEFORE YOU START.

To learn more about MS-DOS 7, the hard drive limits and how to deal with them, see the following:

About MS-DOS 7 and Working with Large sized Hard Drives, especially 127 GB or bigger

Backup Backup Backup

Now before you start, make sure that you have backed up any important data and you have the necessary disks to reinstall the desired programs.

Lazy mans backup (no guarantee you will have everything backed up this way):
Copy the selected directories shown below from C:\Windows to a temporary directory on another partition or burn it to a CD (they dont cost much these days).

C:\Windows\Application Data - Contains Address book, Outlook express data etc.
C:\Windows\Favorites - Contains your bookmarks
C:\Windows\Local Settings - Contains Outlook data (if you use outlook)
C:\Windows\Inf - Contains driver files
C:\Windows\System - Contains dll files (This is probably the biggest directory)
C:\Windows\System32 - Contains driver files

You can delete these after a successful re-install

Partition (fdisk) your hard drive

This guide shows you how to partition a hard disk drive using Windows 98s MS-DOS 7 FDISK utility. Windows 98 MS-DOS 7 FDISK offers no graphical user interface [GUI]. Windows 98 MS-DOS 7 FDISK is simple to use once you understand the basic concepts.

There are several versions of fdisk. We will deal with the version that ships with Windows 98SE.

Partition (Fdisk) with Win98 - Textual Version
Partition (Fdisk) with Win98 - Screen Version

Format your hard drive

Now you can format the partitions you created using fdisk bt typing:

A:\> format c: (see note for Laptop users below)
A:\> format d:
A:\> format e:

etcetera until all drives have been formatted.

At the end of each format you will be requested to provide a label for the hard drive. This can be any descriptive name you wish but it has to be 11 charaters of less.

Useful Note for Laptop users

If your are going to be installing Win98 on a laptop that has a single replaceable bay to use for either a floppy drive or CD-ROM drive and you do not have a bootable Win98 CD-ROM (or your laptop will not boot from the CD-ROM), then you have a chicken and egg situation with the Windows Startup disk and Windows 98 CD-ROM. You can get over this as follows:

1. Format the C: with the /s option as follows:
   format c: /s

2. Boot using the Windows Startup disk "with CD-ROM support"

3. Copy the generic IDE CD-ROM driver to the C: drive as follows:
   copy OAKCDROM.SYS C:\

4. Copy the MSCDEX.EXE file from your MS-RAMDRIVE to the C: drive as follows:
   copy x:\MSCDEX* C:\ (where x is your MS-RAMDRIVE letter)

   Look for the message "The diagnostic tools were successfully loaded to drive x" message when the floppy boot process completes. "x" in this message is the drive letter assigned to your MS-RAMDRIVE. You can check this by typing "dir x: /w" at the A:\> prompt. Volume in drive x is MS-RAMDrive will be displayed as part of the directory listing. Normally this is the next available drive letter after your hard drives.

5. Create a Config.sys file on your C:\ drive with with a single line entry as follows:
   DEVICE=OAKCDROM.SYS /D:MSCD001

6. Create an AUTOEXEC.BAT file on your C:\ drive with a single line entry as follows:
   MSCDEX /D:MSCD001

7. Switch of Laptop and replace floppy drive with CD-ROM drive and reboot to get the CD-ROM mounted from the newly formatted hard drive (C:).

Copy the Win98 directory from your Windows 98 CD to your hard drive.

At the A:\ prompt enter the following DOS commands:

mkdir d:\win98
xcopy32 e:\win98 d:\win98 /s /e /v

You may be asked if the destination is a directory(d) or file(f). Select d as your response if it does.