Having some issues with some hard drives I got off Ebay. I was trying them out in a USB external case. I was able to see one of the 3, but the other 2 I couldn't. So I put one of the HDs that didn't show up using the USB case, and this thing was a pain to format. I ended up using Vcom partition manager to get it formatted. It won't boot from a 98se bootdisk. I wanted to use Fdisk, but I never could get it to come up from that. Now since I've formatted with Vcom, it says insert DOS or system disk...and the 98se boot floppy still won't work on it. I've tried several boot floppies (all 98se images from bootdisk.com). The system is set to boot from floppy,CD, then HD. Luckily the CD seems to be bootable since I could use Vcom. What do I need to do to make the HD come to a C:\ prompt when I fire this machine up? I just don't understand why I can't boot from the floppy? Any ideas?

Will it boot from floppy with the HD OUT? M2 If at first you don't succeed, you're about average.

Just put the drive(s) as single master with a working floppy drive - it's the only way you can really test an unknown drive. If the drive's recognised by the BIOS then use good old FDISK to get it partitioned & DOS to format it, then you can start messing around with it. Trying to do things from CD/USB is just adding complications. "I know that I'm mad - I've always been mad..."

Sometimes Fdisk will not recognize a non-dos partitioned drive. If you have that problem, download and run DelPart. It will delete all partitioning. Then fdisk should work. http://www.russelltexas.com/delpart.htm Make sure that the floppy is first in the bios boot sequence.

I will try to take the CD drives off line to try just the floppy and the HD. The BIOS does recognize the HD as the machine sits now. Then I'll try it with just the floppy if that doesn't work... I'll set you all know how it goes.