Hi, I have a PC running on Win98 SE. I have just attached an external USB portable harddisk box and put in a new IBM 9GB harddisk in it. The computer is able to show this drive (as drive H) when I view it via Windows Explorer. I know I am supposed to fdisk and format this new drive before I can use it but am afraid to screw up my main drive C (or the other hard drives on my PC). Can someone tell me step by step how I can fdisk the new drive? Also, at which step will I be asked to specify the drive to be fdisked? I can't seem to find this on online resources. Tahnks in advance. Gurdip

When you start fdisk (from within Windows; Start/Run/fdisk) and you get to the main menu, there will be an option 5 which is; change to another disk. Choose that and the available disks and the associated partitions will be listed. Choose the disk that hasn't been partitoned yet, it will be disk 3 (or 4 depending on how many hard disks you have in your system). This presupposes that all hardware is correctly connected and identified of course, which it seems to be.

If the drive is already recognized by Windows, then it appears it is already partitioned and formatted.

Hi, Dan01, my drive is being recognised probably because I have installed the driver that comes with the USB harddisk box. It does say in the limited instructions that after I should fdisk. Dan, I went to Start/Run/fdisk in Win98 but no menu appeared; I get a DOS window opening up and some text and the msg "Do you wish to enable large disk support <Y/N>?" I got that msg previously when I went to Start,Programs,MS-DOS,fdisk and I'm afriad to go beyond that screen as I don't want to mess up my internal C, D and E hard drives. Drive F is a removable drive, and G is the CD drive. My USB is also appearing as a Removable drive on H. How come you see a menu and I don't? Gurdip

Open DOS prompt, type fdisk, Y to large disc support. Then option 5 to the change to the drive letter of your removeable drive. Option 4 displays status and makes no changes. ESC to exit.

Hi Dave01, Yup got it! Managed to fdisk and format the disk without a hitch! Thanks a heap!! Gurdip