Formatting an IDE HDD

big.rich1976 · 13 Mar 2016 at 22:59

Hi all,

I am building a retro pc, ala windows 98, 3dfx to recreate some of those gaming memories.

However i have stumbled across a problem. when you start windows 98 setup i get a message to suggest a problem with the filesystem(i suspect it is formatted as NTFS) and stops, i cant do anything with the drive and need a way to formate it, i have no floppy drive attached so cant make a boot disk, is there a tool i can use to format the hdd and boot the pc up with before i install windows.

Cheers
Richard

stewski · 13 Mar 2016 at 23:01

Maybe a freeDos Boot USB will do it? If so an application called "rufus" might help...

andy_mk3 · 13 Mar 2016 at 23:06

Is there a format option in bios? I remember old pcs having a 'low level format' option.

bledd · 14 Mar 2016 at 15:12

fdisk was the weapon of choice..

big.rich1976 · 15 Mar 2016 at 16:45

Thanks guys, I used a combination of Killdisk and FDISK to repartition the drive. Much apppreciated.