I last time I reinstalled windows 98 I had the same problem with the their
being know valid fat. What you need to do is format you partition.
There is an order that these thing need to be done first you have to create
a partition then you have to format the partition so that is can be
recongnized by windows. If you installed a new hard drive or just made a new
partition with windows already install some where else you would need to the
new partition before it can be used.

"HJobe71h" wrote:


I just recently put a brand new 40gb hard drive into a relatives
computer. Everything seems to be installed correctly but I am having a
problem installing windows onto that new hard drive. I hope someone out
there can help me. First of all, I can't open the CDROM drive (either
one, even have an Acer CDWR) and as far as I know, when you use the
floppy boot disk, it will locate the drivers for the reg. cdrom and
allow you to use it. My problem is this.. I put the floppy in, load it
with windows 98 support and it goes through the steps of trying to
start the installation process such as recognizing the hardware.
Eventually, it comes to a screen where it says that the computer can't
recognize (doesn't contain) valid Fat or Fat32 partition, so it
suggests running fdisk from the command prompt. It then takes me to the
command prompt where I type in FDISK next to the A: drive command. It
says "no fixed disks present" when I hit enter. So I type in C: and it
goes to that drive, I type in FDISK and it says the same thing, "no
fixed disks present." Now as you can see, I am stuck in a rock and a
hard place. And since it can't go through the motions of loading
everything, it won't open the cd drives which means I am limited to the
floppy drive currently. Anyone have ANY suggestions on how to stop this
problem and move onward in the installation process? I am to my wits
ends with ideas. I have tried everything I know to pull it out of this
but nothing seems to work, I always end up with the same result. Hope
you can help! Either respond or email to

Thank you!!!


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HJobe71h