Windows 98 can not format hard drive

Retro6

Retro6

Retro6

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So I have a Panasonic CF 28 600MHz model and has 384 MB RAM and 40 GB hard drive.

The hard drive is fine tested and scanned with no errors. Windows 2000/XP installs to this laptop with no problem but I don't want either of those on this particular laptop.

I want Windows 98 SE running on this one so I pop the disk in and run the Windows 98 setup with large disk support then Windows 98 configured the hard drive then when it came to Windows 98 formatting the hard drive it gives an error at 0% and I can't continue. I've tried FDISK options.

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I take it is the right format? FAT32 I think, but definitely not NTFS. Is the drive in LBA mode in the BIOS? Does the BIOS see all 40GB of the drive? Is this Windows 98SE or FE? I know SW has large drive support but I have no idea about FE.

I'd just get an 8GB CF card and be done with it!
 
Might the HDD be set to GPT . It would need to be MBR.

Connect it to a running machine and use Diskpart to set it and format it to fat32
 
almoststew1990 said:
I take it is the right format? FAT32 I think, but definitely not NTFS. Is the drive in LBA mode in the BIOS? Does the BIOS see all 40GB of the drive? Is this Windows 98SE or FE? I know SW has large drive support but I have no idea about FE.

I'd just get an 8GB CF card and be done with it!
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Well the hard drive had a dodgy version of Windows XP on it and I tried to format it using the Windows 98SE CD I tried fdisk and deleted the partitions and then I tried format c: and got an error so the hard drive is formatted to NTFS and I need it in FAT32.

It shows all 40GB in the BIOS.

I did have a floppy drive for this laptop somewhere but I have no idea where it is but if I find it I have a sanitizer floppy that will wipe the drive clean and then I should be able to install Windows 98SE. I've downloaded a few boot disks but I've got no blank CD's at the moment so I'm just wondering if there is anything I could do from the Windows 98SE CD?

I'm not sure if this laptop would take a CF Drive I remember trying one of those a couple years back and the BIOS wouldn't see it. The 40GB hard drive I have in there is good enough tho.
 
Retro6 said:
Well the hard drive had a dodgy version of Windows XP on it and I tried to format it using the Windows 98SE CD I tried fdisk and deleted the partitions and then I tried format c: and got an error so the hard drive is formatted to NTFS and I need it in FAT32.

It shows all 40GB in the BIOS.

I did have a floppy drive for this laptop somewhere but I have no idea where it is but if I find it I have a sanitizer floppy that will wipe the drive clean and then I should be able to install Windows 98SE. I've downloaded a few boot disks but I've got no blank CD's at the moment so I'm just wondering if there is anything I could do from the Windows 98SE CD?

I'm not sure if this laptop would take a CF Drive I remember trying one of those a couple years back and the BIOS wouldn't see it. The 40GB hard drive I have in there is good enough tho.
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I swear the win98 cd had the option to boot into msdos. from there you can format the drive
 
LewisRaz said:
I swear the win98 cd had the option to boot into msdos. from there you can format the drive
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Its been a while since I worked with win98 and DOS. I don't think an NTFS hard drive can be formatted with the Win98 CD or the DOS that's on it. I can format the hard drive using a Windows 2000 CD but it only gives me the option of formatting it in NTFS. I'm getting some blank CD's in the mail soon so I'll be able to make some boot CD's and wipe the hard drive clean.
 
Boot with a linux rescue image, and wipe the partitions manually, or recreate them with MBR.

Also make sure in the bios you booting in legacy mode not UEFI.
 
In fdisk, after creating the drive did you boot back in to format it after making support for large disk?

FDISK > enable large disk support > Yes
Create Dos Partition > Primary DOS
> Set Active
Reboot > ‘format c:’ (if the drive is c)
> run ‘setup’ and it should install Windows 98 SE.

I haven’t used fdisk for about 20/22 years now but I remember it that far.

I think the Windows 98 SE 2 was bootable with fdisk and msdos tools built in.
 
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I've tried everything but for some reason I keep getting the error no matter what I do, the drive is now formatted to fat 32 but yet I get the same error on Windows 98 setup. This laptop doesn't like Windows 98 so its good for nothing.

Its to slow for Linux and I don't want puppy Linux I always have driver issues with display and audio if installing windows 2000 or XP.

Thanks for your help people I appreciate it but this Laptop is junk.
 
formatting it to fat32 wont change the partitioning scheme tho, is it GPT or MBR?

I think I remember in older bios's there used to be a compatibility option to make drives appear smaller so they worked on old OS's, I wonder if that is needed in this case?

Also is it a 4k sector drive? if yes it probably will never work.
 
Its the only hard drive I've got unfortunately. Its installed many OS's without any problems I took it out and put it in an external USB hard drive case and I plugged it in to my PC and I scanned it and formatted it no problems were found.

Maybe I could stick it in another computer to get the installation past that stage then pop it back into the laptop and continue the installation.
 
Retro6 said:
Its the only hard drive I've got unfortunately. Its installed many OS's without any problems I took it out and put it in an external USB hard drive case and I plugged it in to my PC and I scanned it and formatted it no problems were found.

Maybe I could stick it in another computer to get the installation past that stage then pop it back into the laptop and continue the installation.
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Very much a possibility. Give it a go. You could get a laptop drive for under 10£ of that size I would think.
 
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