Reformatting Me With 98se

[nizers]

I"m attempting to fix a friends computer that he has somehow totally messed up. Now, previously i have reformatted my parents Compaq with thier Win98SE Recovery CD (When i say reformat, i mean clean... deleted the partition and everything) so i am somewhat familiar with the process. Now my friend has a compaq also that had WinME on it untill i deleted the partition and began to create a new one. All my friend gave me was his Compaq Recovery CD which so far has been useless. This is what i've done so far:

1. Downloaded a bootdisk from bootdisk.com (http://www.bootdisk.com) for WinME
2. Followed the directions on how to Reformat a computer with Win98 (i assume they're similar to ME instructions) from www.bholcomb.com (http://www.bholcomb.com).
3. Used the Downloaded program delpart.exe to delete the partition.
4. Used the fdisk.exe program from the bootdisk.com bootdisk to create a new partition.

***This is where it gets tricky***

The next step says to format the c: drive by using the command 'format c: /s'... only this doesn't work. So i skip this step and go on to the next step. Copy the mscdex.exe file to the c: drive... Can't do this either, the bootdisk that i downloaded doesn't have the mscdex.exe file on it... or it does, but it's inside the file extract.exe and i can't figure out how to get it out. So.. i skip this as well and just boot up with the WinME recovery CD in the computer and voila.. it seems like the CD-ROM drivers have been found and installed.

So, now i can use the CD-ROM, but that seems to be all that the recovery disk is good for. Well, i don't really want to install WinME back onto his computer and i'd rather just get him Win98SE... so i thought that i might (just maybe, if i'm really, really lucky) be able to use my parent's compaq recovery disk. So i put it in and start the computer.. it starts working. I see the Compaq Recovery screen come up. Then it changes to a screen that says "working..." ...and then that's it. It's frozen. Just to be sure that it was actually frozen i left the computer running all night long only to find that it was still 'working' when i woke up.

Please... if anybody has any suggestions or sees where i've made a mistake in all of this, please let me know. I'm really not worried about whether this computer gets fixed or not.. but on a personal note his computer is really pissing me off and i hate losing. Please Help

[Xelotath]

Okay, I might be able to help you out here. I had some trouble similar to this before.

First off, start all over.

1. Get a boot disk (a 98se disk might work with ME but i am not sure, if not see if you can get a new ME disk and try that)
2. use the command Format C:/ and answer yes to all the questions
3. use the fdisk.exe to create a new partition
4. Put the OS disk that you want to install in the cd rom
5. if the Cd-romdrivers load successfully just go the the cd-rom directory (ex: D:/ or F:/)
6. Setup.exe is the file you want to use so just type that in like: Setup.exe
7. the installation should begin.

[nizers]

I dont' have an OS disk.. all i have is a recovery disk. I checked the CD and the only 2 files on it are a bootcat.bin and a bootsect.bin. There's no setup.exe or install.exe on the disk. I just DL'd a WIn98SE CD off of kazaa.. i'll try inserting that then i'll see what happens.

BTW~ I can't get the ME bootdisk to enable the format program.. Crap, maybe i didn't try it with the ME disk.. I DL'd a 98 bootdisk also and i've tried both ways.. i think i'm gettting confused. The 98disk's files don't work though on his comp.

[Xelotath]

well, get ahold of an ME boot disk, then use it to format.

now that you have the 98se disk it should work.

Recovery disks do not format the drive, they only restore it as far as i know.