Hello again,i've just got a hard drive from the computer fair and i'm having trouble installing windows on it.It says that its compressed and windows want install,How do i make it normal again.

boot from win98 boot floppy disc, once at A: prompt type format C: and press enter

oh!this will get rid of everything on that hard drive, if you dont care about the data on the hard drive go for it, if there is something important on there, go a different route

No i cant format it wont let me.it just keeps saying that its compressed

Use fdisk to delete the partition and repartition. If fdisk will not work, download DelPart and it will remove the partition. Then use fdisk to repartition the drive. DelPart Fdisk help http://fdisk.radified.com/ http://www.compguystechweb.com/troubleshooting/fdisk/index.html http://members.bellatlantic.net/~mrscary/fdisk.htm http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q255/8/67.ASP

If the computer hard disk drive has been compressed in the past by any utility this compression software must be removed or configured to allow Windows to write to it. If you wish to remove the compression from the hard disk drive follow the below steps (being aware this will erase all of your information on the hard drive). Boot from a bootable floppy diskette. At the A:\> type: fdisk <press enter> In fdisk choose the option to display partition information (option 4). Determine the type of system currently setup on the hard disk drive. Once the system has been determined press Esc Once at the fdisk main menu choose the option to delete the partition or logical DOS drive (option 3). Choose option 1 to delete the primary partition if your system is FAT16 or FAT32. If your system was unknown or a Non-DOS partition choose option 4 to delete Non-DOS partition. Once the partition has been deleted or is no longer present choose Create DOS partition or Logical DOS drive (option 1). Choose Create Primary DOS partition (option 1) and create a primary partition on the hard disk drive. Once created press Esc until back at the prompt A:\>. Once at the prompt reboot the computer. Once back at the prompt after rebooting the computer type: format c: <press enter> After the hard disk drive has been formatted successfully reboot the computer and install Windows.

If you mean this message: "Setup Found a Compressed Volume or a Disk-Cache Utility" then that message is a bit misleading and arguably bogus. Doing fdisk before format as advised by others will sort it out. Derek