this is no rush but would appreciate some help on finding the fdisk.
basically i have a hp8580c windows 98se.
it was given to me and has worked fine. i put on a program that wasnt made for windows 98 and it blew out my display drivers. well when i was messing around in device manager
i removed the network driver. any way what was a little problem became much larger. right now when i turn on the computer it says
(no operating system) i have a disk not a recovery disk- (it says microsoft windows 98 second edition )
for pcs with out windows. that disk always worked before when i messed up the comp.
now when i put it in it either says no hard drive or no operating system.i have a boot floppy disk i made up weeks before i messed this comp up. well i put the floppy in a different computer and it has a folder called fdisk. the problem is i cant get to the screen to type in fdisk to run the program.i kind of understand what this fdisk does as it will erase whats on comp but make the settings correct again. ive tried safemode and i cant get it at all. ive typed fdisk when i get any kind of screen. it says no hard drive and it just tells me my command is no good. i think it was the f11 key or ctrl key that got me into something to even type it. any way if any one has any suggestions on how i can run that fdisk and get the drive back id appreciate it

'The fdisk' is a DOS partitioning tool, and can be found on most DOS/Win9x bootdisks, and also normally in C:\windows\command

Not completely sure what you hope to accomplish, but I'm doubtful if fdisk is what you're after

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FDISK is basically used for partitioning & preparing the HDD for formatting. You can also run it to check the current partitioning & format of the drive. It is run from a boot floppy, not from Windows.

Are you sure you're prepared to run FDISK, create new partitions, format the HDD, reinstall Win98, reinstall all the drivers (chipset, video, sound, modem, LAN, USB, etc), & then reinstall all the additional software? You realize that this will probably take several hours?

Go to www.bootdisk.com.
Download file that will create a Win98 bootble floppy.
Enter the bios on the problem machine and make sure the floppy dive is first in the boot sequence.
Boot from the floppy drive.
Type scandisk c: to see what it says.
Type fdisk /status to get a status report of the drives partitioning.
Post back with the results.

Do yourself a favor BACKUP!

'Clearly' a logical progression of events, as reported in this post

"ive typed fdisk when i get any kind of screen. it says no hard drive and it just tells me my command is no good. i think it was the f11 key or ctrl key that got me into something to even type it."

Ok then - kind of a muddle, but if 'the fdisk' is telling you "no fixed disks", there is no magic command to fix that. Not much is very clear though

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ok thanks for the fast response everyone.
today ill try the things youve said to do.
jam you spooked me for a second thinking this task is way over my head. which it is-but i couldnt mess up the comp any more.
i have my windows me comp and when ever i mess it up i can just put in the recovery disks and everythings perfect again. well this windows 98 is close to my comp i use all the time so i thought i have to learn more about actually putting on drivers correctly etc. i didnt think the comp would go down to no operating system or what ever.
i removed a network driver thinking it was a display driver at least thats what initially happened. but again i messed with a lot of settings. plus when it said do you want to save your old settings i always said no. as i figured why save settings that are wrong, anyway theres no doubt i have a mess but im going to try the things you said. 99 percent of the things ive read on computing net have fixed some issue ive had, so im not afraid to try your suggestions just because im not a computer tech. theres no doubt i respect a comp tech and totally believe they should be paid good wages. any one whose dealt with a relative or a friend and has tried to help them fix a little problem knows that if anything happens to their comp from your advice they go bezerk. so i just want to make it very clear - i more than anyone respect computer techs - they have enormous amount of patience and skill. you guys can tell just by the heading of our posts we dont know what were doing. plus we are jumping to fdisks or whatever with no back ground in computers.

Actually, many (maybe most) of us here aren't actual 'techs' but dedicated hobbyists.

It'd be easier to advise you if you could 'boil it down' a little - that is to say, instead of some long rambling tale concerning this & that, maybe you could clearly state what you are trying to do, as well as relate any error message exactly

It wouldn't hurt to break up your text either, and maybe throw in some capitals & punctuation to improve on readability - these monolithic blocks of lower case text are quite difficult to readily decipher

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I may be late getting into this but: I would first get into the bios and make sure your hard drive is still recognized and the boot order has the floppy first. Once you get it to boot from the bootdisk, choose install with cdrom support. If you can get this far I'd do a reinstall "over the top" with your Windows 98 disk. There should be instrutions how to do that on this site, if you look around, otherwise I, or one of the "regulars" can probably walk you though it. Unless you really want to wipe the hard drive clean and start over I've found this to be a heck of a lot easier and you don't loose all your settings and programs.

I have to agree with the above post. Everything does point toward a failed or an incorrectly recognised hard drive. Given your previous problems (which I will read in more detail later(really)) they could well have been caused by a drive on its last legs.

Before you can do anything, you will need to have the drive recognised by bios. This might involve the replacement of the drive.