Months of AOL hell. Now little laptop won't even startup. Trust me, it needs wiped and reinstalled. Need to know what I need to do to assure a fresh install of Win98SE that won't be going op top of anything other than is absolutley necessary. My installer friend isn't real savy, but has a lot of gismos and hardware. Seems the last time he tried installing on top of one of my HD's, because I'd first tried doing it myself w/CD-ROM and only formatted it before giving up on even attempting to create a partition (if I even needed one and if I actually have a FAT32 HD that req's such). Long of the short of it is he couldn't reinstall on it, gave me another and kept the other one. This tells me I shouldn't try much if anything with this HD as I'm sure he has no more to give me exceot the one he kept. Most importantly though, with his level of 'expertise', and with the seriousness of the messed up HD that I have now, shouldn't I do something to it before his trying to install a resh Win98SE for me? I feel I may have accidentally setup a 2nd Win98SE w/o a partitian (if even possible), that or I've screwed up the registry by deleting McAfee's hi----ing registry numbers. I brazenly and simply looked into the registry and deleted all that had McAfee names on it. Now I know better. Besides, nothing irregular about the normal problems I'd had since or before doing that. If I got lucky and nothing there messed it up permanently, and this's not the problem like I pretty sure, and as there must be hope for this HD now, what do I need to do to assure the best results before trying the reinstall? Note: Having tried Syamantec's anti-virus is something else that surely had/has something to do with it all. I see by using the boot floppy and the help menu's view, they've apparrently installed a third drive. So it seems I need to format this HD before having a re-install done, but will the third drive and any partitians be deleted (I hope) simply by formatting it with use of boot floppy? If so, what would prevent the re-install that an earlier HD experienced?

Hi Steve Formatting and reinstalling is pretty straighforward...honestly ! Just need to know what you have on your laptop. Do you have both a floppy drive and a CDROM drive that can be installed at the same time...or is it a swappable affair...either floppy or cdrom but not both ? Also, go to www.bootdisk.com and download a Win 98SE boot floppy disk image. Put a nice new clean virus-free floppy into the drive, run the image file you downloaded, and the boot files will be transferred to the floppy disk. Make sure to write protect the disk, when it is done ( flick the little black latch thing in the corner so that there is a square hole showing ) Make sure you have the serial number ( or product key ) for your Win98SE CD. Krystyna

Maybe straight forward, but I've got issues with what's there now and hpw to deal with them before adding on to my probs. Appreciate the reply, hope to hear from you again soon. It's so rare to even get a reply, except for here on C'net. It interchangeable as I've yet to pick up the docking station. Not to offend, but think it needless to get another boot disc set up as I've got several already, plus can easily make them using my backup laptop that's not infected. And my Win98SE CD-ROM apparrently is a finish version, but not sure. It does re-install Win98SE, and does so in both my laptops w/o asking for key. I bought the one and was given the other from the same guy, so looks like he's used the same software to setup both. Again, my most concern is that I not install over the top of the one version having a 3rd drive set up by Symantec's AV software (which I've dumped already). Too confusing and besides the hi-jac*ing aspect of it, I refuse to put up with. Plus, as mentioned, I believe I errantly added yet a second install over the top of the one mentioned (if even possible). That as I had it up once again, but the display settings were defaulted, making me believe a 2nd install had occurred by my using the CD-ROM to try starting up C again. 'Simply' need assurances that 'these' will both be wiped by formatting as you implied it might/should, especially the suspected 3rd drive and any partitions that may remain after formatting. You can tell I know just enough to be dangerous, can't you. Don't want to waste either of our efforts in doing anything until 'we' know exactly what it is we're doing. Besides, I hope the help is actually possible, as it last started windows, went to desktop (but w/o start bar or icons, just cursor and wallpaper!). Then after hardbooting it, it was coming up with the 1-6 page but safe (3) didn't work. Now it only boots to the 1,2,3 page and if fiddled with substancially, the 1-6 page comes uselessly back. Now it doesn't boot to except using floppy and then goes to the 1,2,3 screen, except I don't know how to navigate to get it into startup's safe mode. 'F5' as prompted below didn't work, as "A:\>" simply appeared. I'm 'thinking' that if possible, maybe it's best to go in and remove Symantec from the registry so as to likely remove the 3rd drive, wise? Thanks again for any help you may kindly continue to offer. Regards- Steve Hopper

Hi Steve Trying to fathom out your reply ! Could you clarify this... "And my Win98SE CD-ROM apparrently is a finish version, but not sure" Do you mean Finnish as in from Finland ?? Formatting the partition(s) will completely wipe whatever is on them. Fdisking the partition(s) will render the hard drive back to "nearly" factory default, and then a new primary partition will need to be created. Probably easiest to take one step at a time, and master each, and not bombard you with a hundred instructions ! Okay ? :-) First thing to do... Boot up with your Win98SE floppy boot disk. At the A:\ prompt, type FDISK Answer Yes to large disk support Choose option number 4 for status of the partitions. What does it say there about your partitions ? Word-for-word !! Krystyna

Hows the alert me work, we' must list our e-mail address when replying to replies or what? Just don't want to list the e-mail addrss and find it on the board. (ie; No AV protection)

I received your alert when I checked My Computing.Net I'll alert you so that you can see how it works. K.

Also see http://computing.net/office/wwwboard/forum/1971.html for the previous thread. Bryan