New HD - format or not?

[grahambell]

I need a new HD for my crappy computer but do I need to format it before installing Windows?

And if so how?

Thanks.

Bloody computers, mutter mutter, give me cars any day, mutter mutter...

[ThePassenger]

Win NT 4 - XP-SP2 will prompt you to create a partition during the "where do you want to install windows" section.

Win98 will require you to use Fdisk to create a partition and then format it. Boot from a Emergency Boot Disk (EBD) and tell it to go the long winded route.

With the drive connected as "primary master" (first drive, first IDE port) type fdisk c: at the prompt. If the drive is connected elsewhere then you'll have to use some guess work to find out what letter DOS will consider the unmolested disk to have.

If the EBD reports the CD-ROM drive is F: and the Tools drive is E: then the new drive is D: with the old one being C:

Create a Primary parition as big as it'll let you. Then quit out and reboot.
Once your back in DOS, format <new driver letter> /U /S should do it, it's been a while since I did win98.

[grahambell]

Thanks for that. Think new HD should be classed as C OK as it'll be replaced the old HD I'm having to use at the moment. Also be getting the smallest HD I can as 10gb is ample for my use.

[JonRB]

grahambell said:

Also be getting the smallest HD I can as 10gb is ample for my use.

I'm not even sure you can get 10Gb any more. I've thrown out HDDs bigger than that as being too small to be worth hanging onto.

Edit: Smallest I can find on Novatech is 40Gb and the difference in price between it and an 80Gb is 10 pence inc VAT!!!!

www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/products/a504x1y0z1p1s0n0m0

Edited by JonRB on Tuesday 19th December 16:37

[ThePassenger]

grahambell said:

Thanks for that. Think new HD should be classed as C OK as it'll be replaced the old HD I'm having to use at the moment. Also be getting the smallest HD I can as 10gb is ample for my use.

In that case. Boot off the EBD.

fdisk c:
create a primary partition as big as the drive (10Gb is a-ok), if given the option to make partition bootable select 'Yes'.
Save, Quit.
Reboot with EBD still in floppy drive.
format c: /U /S

This will check for bad sectors, format to FAT32 and write system files to the disk (i.e. make it fully bootable). Insert win98 CD, D:, setup, bingo. Might want to copy the CD to the HDD for speed but that's optional.