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Im trying to reinstall Windows 95 off of the CD that came with the computer when I bought it from the store. Its a Packard Bell (junk hehe) Anywho, it says something like Getting ready to format hard disk drive. then the formatting status pops up, sits at 0% for a couple of seconds, then it Terminates the formatting process and gives an error like Invalid Media or bad Track 0 (something like that.....) I would install Win98 off my store bought CD but that doesnt work either... I even tried installing the basic Win95 OEM version and it says i need a MS-DOS boot partition... please help me!
Sounds like that maybe you don't have your partitions set up.
Get a Win98 boot disc and boot of that.
run fdisk, delete all partitions, then create one primary partition.
Then go to the dos prompt and format the partition.
Then stick your Win 98 CD in there and run setup.I have seen with some Brand name company laptops, that the os CD's that come with it are cut down versions and not full installs :(
Cheers
Furble
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Tried it.... Didn't work... FDisk got stuck while i was adding the partition.. Got stuck at Verifying Disk Integrity.. went to 12%, then 5 minutes later went to 0% and stayed there for like 10 minutes... Hmm, anyone know where I can download full version of MS-DOS 5.0?? That would do me some good cuz then I would have a dos boot partition and work from there
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Firstly, During FDISK, typically you should be able to verify drive integrity within 1 minute, if it takes much longer and stalls during the process, you have a potential bad hdd, if drive integrity fails,you'll have to replace the drive.
secondly, during the manual format c: /u
the error "invalid media or bad track 0" means once again that the drive needs replacing.
all the signs of a defective hard drive are present. i wouldn't waste anymore time trying to correct the issue.
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When i used my hdd on my old 486, it said the same stuff.... I downloaded a DOS 5.0 install and it fixed my problems. That was awhile ago and now i forget where to get MSDOS 5.0 install. No hd dies untill it fries, gets maximum amount of bad sectors, or is altered internally
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It's probably a hopeless cause but I would start fdisk before I went to bed and let it run all night. Can't hurt!
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Well, the Media Descriptor is the bit of a hard drive that tells the system it is a hard disk, rather than a floppy or CD. If this is bad, then the disk is bad. Sometimes it can be fixed by re-fdisk-ing and all that, but if it is physically damaged (ie scratched) then it's off to the hard disk shop.
Hope this helps.
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Ok i used the fdisk that came with my Win98 setup cd, after it verifies integrity the first time, it prompts to use all available disk space, i hit Y and then it goes to the integrity verification again while this is happening it also has in bright white text under Verifying blah blah, that says Write Protect Error Writing Fixed Disk...
whats this mean? anywho i restart the comp and FDISK lists the new partition but it says its a PRI DOS Type partition, but under SYSTEM it says UNKNOWN.....
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Check your BIOS and make sure the boot record is not write-protected. Yours may or may not have this option but worth a look.
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doesnt have that option..... you dont happen to know a really good DOS partitioning program i could get do you?
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It lists the following:
Disk Drv MBytes Free Usage
1 6197 100%
C: 6197
Whats up with that? shouldnt it all be on one line? There is a ramdisk type thing running since it is booted on a Win98 boot disk... but shouldnt C: be #1 with 100% usage?
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Thats the way it is suppose to look. It will not show 100% usage until you format the entire drive. It looks like you have a 6 gig drive that has nothing on it yet. I did notice you have an older computer so my first concern is if this computer can recognize the full size of your hard drive. Have you tried to create a partition in FAT16 (do not enable hard drive support)?
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Yep, tried it.... locked up at verifying integrity 24% i think so what i did to get around this was use my Redhat Linux partition program to set a Pri Dos partition with the system id of DOS 16 > 32
but like i suspected it didnt list the DOS system, instead, UNKNOWN :( If i try to format it says Bad Media or Track 0 bad.
I have gotten around this before but i dont even remember how!
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no, should i? i dont think my other comp has the BIOS to read a 6gig hard drive tho... i guess ill try, why the hell not hehe
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Ok i got it hooked up to my old 486 and my CMOS for that comp is running a Media Analysis on the HD.... hopefully it comes out with good results...
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W00T! W00T!
And almost everyone said ole stump man wouldnt get this HDD up and running!
Thx goes to Dave for the damn good suggestion about hooking it to a different computer!!!!
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