Detail Instructions for Fdisking (Partitioning) & Formatting your Hard Drive then Installing or Reinstalling Windows Millennium (ME)
Before doing anything: First back up any files that you want to keep. Files to keep may include word processing documents, address books, e-mail, bookmarks, favorites, financial records, lottery numbers, custom cursors or icons and so on!
VERY SPECIAL NOTE:
Before you format your hard drive and do a clean installation of Windows. Make sure that you have all the drivers for things
such as: Modem, Printer,
Video Card, and Sound Card handy because
it's more than possible that the version of Windows that you are installing won't have the correct drivers for those items and will
ask for an installation disk for those things.
One More Very Special Note: Make sure that if your copy of Win ME is an upgrade copy (not a full copy) that you have either a Win 98 CD, because during the early part of the Win ME installation you will be asked for proof that you do have and older copy of Windows. When that happens, place the Win 98 CD in the CD drive then click the Next Button. After the Win ME installation routine is happy that you do have an older OS, remove the Win 98 CD and place the Win ME CD in the drive again and click the Next Button and the installation will continue.
If you have not created a Windows 98 Startup Disk, do so now!
To Create a Windows 98 Startup Disk, Place a clean floppy in your A: drive, and place your Windows 98 CD in your CD Player then click: Start, Settings, Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs Icon, then click the Startup Disk Tab, then Click Create Disk.
Once you have the Startup Disk, While Still Running Windows 98, place Startup disk in your A: drive then copy the file: FORMAT.COM to the disk. For some reason when the Win 98 Startup Disk is created it just doesn't include that file.
To copy the file: FORMAT.COM to the Windows
98 Startup Disk go to Start, Find, and in the Find window type: FORMAT.COM, then
click the Find Now Button. Once
FORMAT.COM is in the Find Windows, Right Click on
the file and select: Send To 3 1/2 Floppy
{A}
After doing that, leave the Startup disk in your A: drive and reboot your computer. After you arrive at the
A:\> prompt (make sure your Win 98 CD is in your CD-ROM drive then type:
E: [Enter]
The reason for typing E: is because when the Windows 98 Startup Disk boots up your computer it creates a
RAM drive on your hard drive that takes up
one drive letter, causing your CD-ROM drive letter to advanced by one letter.
After typing: E: [Enter] you should get an
E:\> prompt. At the E:\>
prompt type: Dir /W [Enter] doing that should cause the contents of the
CD-ROM to be displayed on your screen.
If the files on your Windows ME CD are displayed on the screen, you can be sure
that you do have CD-ROM access when booting with the Windows 98 Startup Disk. If you do
have access to your CD-ROM, change back to your A:\ drive by typing: A:
[Enter]
First you must Fdisk (Partition) your hard drive before you can Format the drive..
(Additional
- Notes on Fdisk & Format
)
FDISK
To partition the drive:
Leave the boot disk you created and tested above in your A: drive as it contains FDISK.EXE.
At the A:\> prompt type: Fdisk [Enter]
Example: A:\>Fdisk [Enter]
HOT NOTE: If your FDISK.EXE is from Win 95 B or later one of the first things that happens is you are
asked if you want to Enable Large Disk Support. If your Hard Drive is over 2 Gig in Size and you only
want one large Partition to be created using FAT32: Answer Yes!
Note: If you have two or more drives in your system, the menu displays five options. Option five allows
you to select the drive you want to partition. Make sure you select the correct drive.
Select create DOS partition or logical Dos drive. Press ENTER.
Select create primary DOS partition. Use the maximum available size for your primary partition and
make the partition active for Drive C. This puts the entire drive on one partition and allows you to load
the DOS boot information on the drive. Press ENTER for each subsequent selection.
After all of the appropriate selections are made, the computer restarts itself. LEAVE the Boot Disk in the
A: drive and wait for it to reboot then perform a format.
When you get back to the A:\> prompt type: Format C: /S /V
[Enter]
Example::: A:\>Format C: /S /V [Enter]
That will cause your C: drive to be formatted and copy the systems files to the hard drive and give you the option of entering a
Volume label (name the drive).
After the format has been completed, reboot your computer. After rebooting, and you are back at the A:\> prompt, change back to your CD
drive by typing: E: [Enter]
When you get back to the E:\> prompt type: Setup
[Enter] and that will
cause the Windows ME installation to begin.
Comments appreciated: eric.groves
(at) verizon.net