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I recently to wipe my hard drive and reinstall Windows 98.
I created a Windows 98 startup disk from the add/remove programs icon in control panel.
I started the pc with this disk in the floppy drive and chose to start with cd rom support. When I got to the A:/ prompt I typed "format c:" . The format begun but when it reached 89 % complete it stopped. A message appeared onscreen saying "Drive not ready, Format terminated.
I have tried to format the hard disk many times since but to no avail. Please help me!
YOU RETARDS! DON'T YOU KNOW ANYTHING? Unconditional format will hardly do crap.
Dex... he's ON the A: drive. Stupid stupid.
Unconditional format often will only do things with floppies. It only performs a filesystem level format - which is all a normal format does, unless you do QuickFormat which simply wipes the FAT.
Normal format checks over errors and tries to mark bad sectors and such, and sometimes stops if too many are found. Unconditional format disregards any bad sectors that are found and just tries to keep pushing on.
Looks like your drive might have hardware trouble or physical damage, IE bad sectors. And if no one's told you, you can't repair bad sectors. If you ever get it formatted, do a surface scan with Scandisk, and if bad sectors come up, the drive's crashed and gone farming (reference to when the drive heads start plowing little throughs on the surface). Or, while formatting, if you see messages about trying to recover allocation units, the same thing applies.
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You shouldn't enter FORMAT.COM but FORMAT. So A:\FORMAT C: /U or just FORMAT C: /U if you are on drive A: (Format.com is the file. FORMAT causes it to execute)
You need to find out why FORMAT is stopping. Using SCANDISK is a good suggestion.
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Both the below have the exact same effect
format c:
format.com c:
The '.com' is unnecessary but does no harm
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Pyros,
"Dex... he's ON the A: drive. Stupid stupid."
What difference does it make. The extra a:\ before format MAKES NO DIFFERENCE. In actuality, it adds an extra layer of clarity. Try not to be so critical of people in the future.
BP,
Things to try: Recreate the partition you're trying to format. Also go to the manufacturer of your hard drive and see if you can't download some diagnostic software. Alot of times you can repair damaged hard drives with the manufacturer's zero fill utility (sometimes erroneously called a low level format). Also there is a commercial product called spinrite which can repair some damaged hard drives (if this is indeed is what is wrong with your hard drive). You can find out more about by going to www.grc.com .
Hope that helps,
-Michael
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Pardon me for clarifying things that MATTER or are REDUNDANT:
Dex seemed to be saying that THAT was the reason he couldn't format.
And everyone else seemed to think Unconditional format would solve it all without even being able to say why. When it's not actually the solution. Voodoo & black magic programming when there is a perfectly known explanation can typically cause some damage.
DOS searches first in the current directory or the directory specified. Then it searches in PATH.
So, being on the A: drive and typing A:\FORMAT would be the same as doing it from anywhere else.
Also, once your hard drive has bad sectors and physical damage on it... don't trust anything important on it. Physical damage is not repairable through software; a low level format (which can sometimes erase firmware and render the drive PERMANENTLY unusable except as maybe a paperweight) or zero fill will sometimes provide a temporary cure... but instead of having marked bad sectors, there are just patches that could screw up at any time and be very unreliable.
Just get a new drive!
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Hey since you know everything and everyone is stupid or dumb,dumb, dumb, then why don't we just forward all the forums questions to your e-mail box and you can answer them all? Sound good? Alrighty then, I'll arrange with the admins to have it done.
-Michael
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bp
As a matter of interest did you try FORMAT C: /U at all - I did say try, and who says you have a bad sector anyway, since you have never completed a format to get the report.
I would think this IS the next logical thing to try before you give in. FORMAT Does sometimes hang just as bp tells it by the way.
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That's just perfectly peachy.
Plunger_master@yahoo.com please.-------
Regarding the bad sectors: Format will typically stop in a normal format if many bad sectors are found. DOS utils don't just screw up for the heck of it like Windoze utils.
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unable to format Hard drive 4.3 GB, 8.4 GB,
2.1 GB and 1.2 Gb of seagate. please
send me latest free software for the same
and oblige.
thanks for co-operation.
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MABE SOMEONE CAN EXPLAIN HOW TO FORMAT USING THE DEBUG COMMAND. IT WAS TOLD TO ME BY SEGATE ABOUT 15 YEARS AGO. NEEDLESS TO SAY I FORGOT HOW. THE PROBLEM IS NOT ALWAYS BAD SECTORS. ASK AROUND AND GIVE IT A TRY THEN RUN SCANDISK EXTENSIVE SCAN. THE LAST OPTION THAT YOU HAVE IS TO GET A FORMAT UTILITY FROM THE MAKER OF THE DRIVE. THAT IS THE ALL YOU CAN DO FOR THAT DRIVE. I HATE WHEN YOUNASK FOR HELP AND THESE KNOW-IT-ALLS TALK DOWN TO YOU. DO WHAT I SAID AND THAT WILL SOLVE YOUR PROBLEMS.
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i cannot format my hard drive, i have tried just about all i can think of.
i can't even get to a normal dos prompt with-out windows opening up.
when i do try and format it says that the c drive is being used, which unables me to carry on.
or it comes up that it cannot be unlocked and then terminates the format.
I am trying to change the hard drive up to a 20GB, the one that was in before was a 1.9GB and the 20 is in now but it still reads 1.9Gb, I thought it would have read that it's a larger hard drive, so this is why i am wanting to format the drive hoping this will sort out the problem.can anyone help...
bert..
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Bazza-
try restarting the computer in a msdos mode & then type format c: -see if that works.
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I'm pretty sure that there was a virus on my computer. I couldn't get onto the internet and all my programs froze so I restarted it. Once I restarted my computer I couldn't get into windows. It keeps telling me invalid drive or no hard drive found. I had to change my bios to make sure that it detects my hard drive, but now that I try to reinstall windows98 it doesn't do it properly. When it tryies to format it goes to 1% then afterwards it gives me a message that it's trying to allocate sectors and then it just freezes. HELP! What do I do to fix this and get my computer back up and running? Pls email me and let me know if you have any suggestions.
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