Hi-
I am trying to help a friend long distance. He is working on an old computer and he is trying to delete NT to install Win 98. He can not get to regular old DOS however. If someone could please let me know how to do this. Also, how would you delete NT once you are in there? Thanks!

He should use a Win 98 boot disk to boot to DOS then he should repartition the disk to FAT32 using the fdisk utility provided on the disk. Then he should format the fresh partition.

Optionally, if it's a FAT partition he could just delete the winnt directory and install 98 but he would not have the benefits of FAT32.

Reply one is correct however if the NT has been on a NTFS partition FDISK can't help you out, you need delpart.exe to kill the NTFS partiton(s)
After that Make a bootfloppy from a W95/98 machine (sys a: will do that ) copy fdisk and if you need it delpart to the floppy too
Reboot NT machine with the floppy
First delpart all NTFS partitions
Reboot and with FDISK remove old FAt partitions and create new one(s).
Boot again from CDROM w95 or W98 and install new OS

You should be able to use FDISK though to get rid of NT if it is a NTFS partition by selecting the delete non dos partition option.

Fdisk will only remove a Primary NTFS partition; no version of M$ Fdisk will remove Extended NTFS areas. DR-DOS/Fdisk has been reported as being able to remove Extended NTFS.

If Extended NTFS areas, you have 'at least' three options.

Either: the " delpart.exe " routine as advised by Robert above.

delpart.exe = freebie 27K download via:

http://hercules.lss.ksu.edu/download/MSSTUFF/index.htm

(parent site: http://hercules.lss.ksu.edu)

Or: boot to NT and via Disk Admin delete all partitions in that area. Then boot from a DOS/'9x boot-disk; run Fdisk and delete the remaining (Primary) partition; also run the " sys c: " command from the boot-disk/DOS prompt to reset the boot-loader to the DOS/'9x version. Then reconfigure HD as you wish and install '98.

Or: Use the NT set-up floppies and during set-up choose to delete partitions when it comes up. Afterwards run the " sys c: " routine via DOS/'9x boot-floppy to rewrite the boot-loader to the DOS/'9x version. Then reconfigure HD as you wish and install '98.

IF only a Priumary NTFS area then Fdisk will do the job; as will any of the above 3 routines...