I typed fdisk /mbr, but what did you want me to do once in fdisk again? (I just left it like above). What does the /mbr do? Once back at the C: drive, I typed "format C:" and got the error mss. "Invalid media type reading drive C:" The settings of fdisk are as I said above. Is this the proper settings for installing a WIN 95 OS? Any idea what the 'usage 50%' means? Thanks again, Shanyn

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Ellis made an excellent point that I didn't pick up on. You must have win95a. The fdisk /mbr creates a new master boot record. It doesn't really tell you anything, so after the command just go on to the other stuff. This was in case of an mbr virus or just the wrong info in the partition table. I would agree with Ellis about creating two 2gig partitions making c active, and running format on both of those. Maybe it would help to know why you are doing this. Is this an older refurb or something that is new to you, or did something happen to cause you to do this...finally was win95 the os prior, or was it nt by chance?

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Sorry Mark, I missed your first response but read the second. But still not having any luck. Ellis, I tried to create a logical drive, followed the directions for an 'extended DOS partition' and now it's saying my CD drive is F:! What did I do? I ran setup.exe from the "F:" drive just to see what would happen, and I got the same error mss as when I first opened this can of worms (see first post). Why does it think I do NOT have a MS-DOS boot partition? don't I? Thanks for the advice everyone!

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OK, now I have 2 partitions, the first is C: which is active (pri DOS), the second has no drive listed next to it, and two logical drives, D: and E:, which is probably not what you wanted me to do. When I try to format C: now, I get the error, "Invalid media type reading drive C Abort, Retry, Fail?" Hmmmm........

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Hard Drives: C and D - CDROM should be E (unless you've got a fancy Boot Disk that assigns a RAM drive for the DOS commands). I never use the Windows created Boot Disks - I always make my own. After FDISK (the last one) - Did you format each drive?

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This isn't as hard as it would seem. Boot from the boot disk and at the a: prompt type fdisk. Large disk support? yes Choose option 3 (delete partition. . .) Choose option 1 (delete primary dos. . . ) Delete partition 1 Go back to main fdisk screen (hit esc twice I think) Choose option 4 Are any partition left? If so go back to main fdisk screen and choose option 3 again (delete partition. . . ) and delete whatever partitions are left. Go back to main fdisk screen and choose option 1 (create dos partition. . . ). Use maximum space and make active. . . ? yes Esc ESc Reboot choosing cdrom support What you've done is remove any existing partitions you might have and recreated a new one. If you're using an OS version capable of only fat16 the new partition will be 2 gig otherwise it will be 4 gig. If it's 2 gig you can create a second partition in the remaining space and format it as a second hard drive. But to install your OS you don't need to partition the remaining space now. At the a:\ prompt type format c: Most of the time the boot disk creates a ram disk to load files that don't fit on the boot disk. That will be drive D: Your cdrom will temporarily be drive E: So after formatting type e:\setup at the a: prompt. That should do it.

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Like DAVE said: I missed the error you got trying to format - sorry...

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If you follow DAVE's advice and still get an error - You may need to install a BIOS overlay (freely available from the OEM). It might be worth the few seconds it takes to verify the BIOS setup. See if it correctly identifies the drive.

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What is a BIOS overlay? I'm not sure what you mean by 'does it ID the drive?' I think it does, but I think I've confused it now by trying to partition, and doing it incorrectly maybe. Here's the complete picture...my friend (soon to be ex-friend probably!) asked me to reformat/reinstall his system so he could have it clean. He didn't have his original WIN '95 CD, but I found an old one of mine that has been floating around (and unused - now I have ME). The CD just says "WINDOWS 95", but not "upgrade" or anything, so I assumed it was an original OEM. I downloaded a '95a boot floppy, which is what I'm using as a boot disk, although I don't know for sure which WIN'95 he had originally on his computer. At one point, I started to use Windows NT setup disks, because I have an old NT cd, but it produced an error message on the second floppy, so I cancelled setup. I know this has something to do with the error mss I'm getting about NTFS, but I would think I could still install '95 at this point. Besides thinking I hosed my friend's system...any more advice? (you guys are great by the way). -Shanyn

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OK...problem persists..hmmm...well, I think Ellis may have missed the fact that you created two logical drives d & e. that would explain the cd-rom being f. Not a super big deal at this point because you have bigger fish to fry. If it says invalid media type, I suspect it is not seeing your HD, because it is basically saying that it expects to see a hard disk and instead sees something else, if that makes sense. It might see it as a non-dos partition. You might try resetting the BIOS defaults, or since this pc is older you might have to manually have it search for your hard drive. Getting into the BIOS is different on each brand etc. Usually f10, del, f1 - it may say when you first turn it on. If that does not work, maybe open the case and pull out the cables attached to your hard drive, then reseat them firmly. You could also choose #4 on the fdisk menu, and make sure "C" does not say non-dos partition - it should say pri dos. good luck!

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DAVE - followed your directions...got to the "reboot choosing CDROM support" and gathered you meant to go to setup and change the boot to boot from CD. Is this what you meant? When I did this, it gave me an error. So I went back, did your directions over again (just for good measure) and this time just rebooted (to A: again) and tried to format c:. It doesn't recognize C: anymore, so all this talk about BIOS is probably right. BUT...hold the phone...my friend found his system cd and floppy. So I've restarted with this boot floppy, made for a Packard Bell, which is what this computer is, and now it won't let me run setup.exe from the cdrom drive because it can't find the cdrom drive. I do know that this is a new cdrom since the time the system was first bought. How can I make it 'see' the cdrom drive? Man!

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Sorry I wasn't clear. Reboot choosing cdrom support meant boot with the floppy and when the cdrom support option comes up choose support. So if you haven't already, go back into cmos and have a: as the first boot device. Also make sure you haven't altered the HD setting in cmos. Normally you would set it to auto but I think the packard bell has a phoenix bios and I don't recall if it has that setting. Once you do that, boot from the floppy again, run fdisk and choose option 4, display partition info. Under type it should say "pri dos". Under system it should say "fat16" or "unknown". Unknown usually means you haven't formatted it yet. I'm thinking you didn't remove all the partitions. If you tried to format it and got an invalid drive specification error that means it isn't partitioned properly. Your bios recognizes physical hard drives, the OS recognizes partitions. So if the HD is not partitioned or is partitioned with a system your current OS doesn't recognize it won't recognize the drive. I'm sure there's nothing wrong with the system. You just need to get the HD partitioned and formatted right. If you have further problems there is a program called "delpart" that will delete partitions sometimes easier than fdisk. I think you can get it at www.bootdisk.com. Or you can download a zerofill program that writes zeros to the entire HD, obliterating the partitions in the process. Post back if you still have problems.

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Thank you DAVE, I'm afraid I may have dug my hole deeper. I used this system recovery boot floppy for Packard Bell, and now when I boot from the floppy the screen says first, info about AMIBIOs or some such, then, "OS load in progrss", "starting Windows 95" and then settles at the C: prompt. I tried "format c:" to see if I could start from scratch with my original bootdisk (which I got from bootdisk.com), but this is how the computer boots up now, even with my bootdisk, and if I try to format C: I get "Bad command or file name." Dir for C: is the following: IO SYS MSDOS SYS COMMAND COM I can, enter setup by F1 while it's booting, if that helps. What should I do now?

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OK, I have it back to booting off my original '95(a) boot disk I downloaded from bootdisk.com, but when I try to run setup.exe from the d: drive (cdrom) it gives me the error mss "Cannot creat a temporary directory. If you have HPFS or NTFS installed on your hard drive, you will need to create an MS-DOS boot partition to set up Windows." (see post #1) ........back to the drawing board! Should I just huck the thing into the ocean????

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Boot from the floppy with the cd in the cdrom and type d: enter and then dir enter Does your cdrom spin up and give the directory on the cd? If not type e: enter and then dir enter Does it spin up now and give the directory? I'm just wondering what drive letter your cdrom is after booting from the floppy. Whatever drive letter works is the one you want to run setup from. If this still doesn't work I can email you a zero fill program to get rid of any partition on your drive.

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When you get a directory listing, post back the date of the files. That way I can tell what version you have and then you can make sure you have the right boot disk.

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