Hi everyone, I screwed up my system I think by not properly re-partitioning the HDD (bear with me the backstory to it is a little long, but I think the info may be necessary for your assistance). I had just done some hardware upgrades successfully (upgraded CPU, added new HDD & DVD writer without problems I could see) and was getting ready to repartition and format the HDD when I discovered that I couldn't get the new HDD I added to format in the Windows 2k disk management software to the full size of 76GB (80GB drive), it would format for a while then get hung up and say it couldn't finish (I forget the message), but I then read something about win 98 fdisk being able to do large drive formats better than Win 2k, so I decided to boot up with an old Win 98 boot disk I had created a couple years ago and deal with the harddrives that way. Unfortunately, though I did partition my old HDD successfully a while back, I didn't realize there was a particular method of taking down the partitions and I think I did them incorrectly as I couldn't get the HDD to be structured as having just 1 partition like I wanted, it kept looking like the old structure somewhat, I also failed on the new HDD to get it to format to it's full size, it stopped at about 10GB. Also during all this I tried switching over to the Win 2k bootable CD to try and use their partition system, but Win 2k, even after repeatedly trying, would not display my drives, I could only access them through the Win 98 boot disk. Also almost every time I went through the Win 2k bootable CD, I came upon a blue screen and I had to reboot the system. Also (remember I said this was a little bit of a long story, sorry guys), I reflashed the BIOS on the motherboard because I wondered if the old BIOS was causing my issues. However that didn't help, and shortly after (a couple reboots later) I ran into worse issues...because now my Win 98 boot disk hangs right after the IRQ'S come up on the screen just after the Drives are displayed on the screen during the boot process, and it doesn't display an error or go to a blue screen, it just freezes (keyboard as well), and rebooting again does the same thing over and over again. The Win 2k bootable CD will still boot up, but the recovery console in the program doesn't let me do anything (i.e. I can go to it, but and I'm not sure how it's supposed to work, but it goes to a C:\ and I can't switch to another drive or do any formatting or anything), and the partitiong program still doesn't work in Win 2k for me. So I can't boot with the Win 98 boot disk, I've screwed up the partitions, maybe the BIOS is messed up (though I can still access the BIOS settings fine), the only thing that works is the Win 2k bootable CD. So...anybody got any ideas, or did I screw my system beyond help? Thanks,

1. Update fdisk - Go to bootdisk.com, then click on the first item (bookdisk), then about 2/3rd down the page, download the updated fdisk and replace the old one on your Win 98 boot disk with the new one. 2. Will your Win 98 boot disk boot up to a A:\ prompt? 3. If so run fdisk. 4. Remove all partitions in reverse order than how they were created. For example - with C, D & E drives, delete the E drive first, then the D drive, then the extended partition, and last, delete the C drive. 5. Partition the new hard drive with the updated "fdisk." This will be able to partition a hard drive larger than 80GB. 6. Format each drive created. Fat32? 6. Install your operating system. CoffeeBreak

Thanks for the info, I'm running into a bit of a problem though, the only other computer I have access to is my wife's laptop without a floppy drive, I've tried to create a bootable cd with the necessary files, but I'm not experienced enough at it to do it properly, I guess my understanding of creating a bootable CD would be to find an image of a floppy with the necessary files on it (in this case win 98), check the "make bootable CD" option in a disc burner program, and then choose the image file and burn the disc. However no data appeared on the disc and when I put it in my computer and booted it up, nothing happened, so what am I doing wrong? In answer to question 2. my win 98 floppy disck wasn't booting up to any prompt it was getting hung up right after the IRQ settings are displayed. Thanks for any help you can give.

You can find some general information about floppy drives at the following web site. http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000277.htm On your CD burner, have you tried printing out a manual or help files from within that program? Thats the way I got an operating manual with my "Easy CD Creator." CoffeeBreak