formating

iv got an older e machine (etower 333k). The operating system that
came with it was ME the first hard drive crashed. i have an older 20
gig hard drive im putting in but it tells me to run a floppy boot
disk. i don't have one i do have a dos floppy i run it but it does not
show the hard drive now in bios it shows just fine. How do i get it to
show in dos so i can formate and install???

wrote:

iv got an older e machine (etower 333k). The operating system that
came with it was ME the first hard drive crashed. i have an older 20
gig hard drive im putting in but it tells me to run a floppy boot
disk. i don't have one i do have a dos floppy i run it but it does not
show the hard drive now in bios it shows just fine. How do i get it to
show in dos so i can formate and install???

With WinME you should be able to boot from CD and just follow the
instructions.

When you want to do it with a dos floppy you'll have to use FDISK to create
a primary partition, activate it, then reboot (from floppy) and use FORMAT
C: to format that partition, and then use SYS C: to make the harddisk
bootable.

You are in the wrong group. You want the ME newsgroups.
microsoft.public.windowsme.general
microsoft.public.windowsme.setup

You can get an ME boot disk from www.bootdisk.com

--
Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/User
www.grystmill.com

wrote in message
...
iv got an older e machine (etower 333k). The operating system that
came with it was ME the first hard drive crashed. i have an older 20
gig hard drive im putting in but it tells me to run a floppy boot
disk. i don't have one i do have a dos floppy i run it but it does not
show the hard drive now in bios it shows just fine. How do i get it to
show in dos so i can formate and install???

Windows ME setup includes partitioning and formatting tools like XP? I
didn't know that. Good thing I'm flattening a box this morning. I can test,
eg.

--
Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/User
www.grystmill.com

"Ingeborg" wrote in message
...
wrote:

iv got an older e machine (etower 333k). The operating system that
came with it was ME the first hard drive crashed. i have an older 20
gig hard drive im putting in but it tells me to run a floppy boot
disk. i don't have one i do have a dos floppy i run it but it does not
show the hard drive now in bios it shows just fine. How do i get it to
show in dos so i can formate and install???

With WinME you should be able to boot from CD and just follow the
instructions.

When you want to do it with a dos floppy you'll have to use FDISK to
create
a primary partition, activate it, then reboot (from floppy) and use FORMAT
C: to format that partition, and then use SYS C: to make the harddisk
bootable.

On May 28, 12:44 pm, "Gary S. Terhune" none wrote:
You are in the wrong group. You want the ME newsgroups.
microsoft.public.windowsme.general
microsoft.public.windowsme.setup

You can get an ME boot disk fromwww.bootdisk.com

--
Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/Userwww.grystmill.com

wrote in message

...

iv got an older e machine (etower 333k). The operating system that
came with it was ME the first hard drive crashed. i have an older 20
gig hard drive im putting in but it tells me to run a floppy boot
disk. i don't have one i do have a dos floppy i run it but it does not
show the hard drive now in bios it shows just fine. How do i get it to
show in dos so i can formate and install???

i do apologize if im in the wrong group but this was the only one that
had any thing close to my problem. Also to get a little in depth my
cd rom will not work and in dos it will not show the c drive all i get
when i try is invalid drive specification any ideas??

Yes, I have ideas, and at the moment they all have to do with broken or
disconnected hardware. But I'm not going to go any farther.

Please, FOR YOUR OWN GOOD!!!!, go use the newsgroups I listed. Getting
advice here is dangerous. Yes, what you ask about is probably something we
could guide you through trouble-shooting, but we'd forget that we're talking
about ME (or some folks don't know ME at all), and the discussion will
wander and we'll inevitably forget that we're talking about ME and suggest
things that are all wrong for your system.

Plus, you're going at it all backwards when you ask for our help. These
things you include in your second post are VERY important hints as to what
might be wrong with your system, and you already knew that, or should have.
When asking for assistance in these groups, explain the WHOLE picture. For
instance, is this a machine you just picked up, or one you've been using
that just went on the blink. What have you been doing to the machine that
might have messed it up? Adding hardware, adding software, running some kind
of utility that promised to fix your machine, what? That kind of knowledge
is CRITICAL.

--
Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/User
www.grystmill.com

wrote in message
...
On May 28, 12:44 pm, "Gary S. Terhune" none wrote:
You are in the wrong group. You want the ME newsgroups.
microsoft.public.windowsme.general
microsoft.public.windowsme.setup

You can get an ME boot disk fromwww.bootdisk.com

--
Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/Userwww.grystmill.com

wrote in message

...

iv got an older e machine (etower 333k). The operating system that
came with it was ME the first hard drive crashed. i have an older 20
gig hard drive im putting in but it tells me to run a floppy boot
disk. i don't have one i do have a dos floppy i run it but it does not
show the hard drive now in bios it shows just fine. How do i get it to
show in dos so i can formate and install???

i do apologize if im in the wrong group but this was the only one that
had any thing close to my problem. Also to get a little in depth my
cd rom will not work and in dos it will not show the c drive all i get
when i try is invalid drive specification any ideas??

OK, I've looked it up, mostly here,
http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=17, and it appears as I thought --
that ME is just like all other 9x systems. Only OEM versions are bootable,
and even then, I don't believe that is true for all Win98 or Win98SE OEM
discs. And I've found reference that suggests that the ME OEM CD is capable
of wiping and reformatting (or even repartitioning) the first hard drive if
no existing ME OS is present. Which is something that would really **** me
off, since I seldom install anything to an empty hard drive.
http://theosfiles.com/os_windows/ospg_wme.htm

--
Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/User
www.grystmill.com

http://theosfiles.com/os_windows/ospg_wme.htm
"Ingeborg" wrote in message
...
wrote:

iv got an older e machine (etower 333k). The operating system that
came with it was ME the first hard drive crashed. i have an older 20
gig hard drive im putting in but it tells me to run a floppy boot
disk. i don't have one i do have a dos floppy i run it but it does not
show the hard drive now in bios it shows just fine. How do i get it to
show in dos so i can formate and install???

With WinME you should be able to boot from CD and just follow the
instructions.

When you want to do it with a dos floppy you'll have to use FDISK to
create
a primary partition, activate it, then reboot (from floppy) and use FORMAT
C: to format that partition, and then use SYS C: to make the harddisk
bootable.

wrote in message ...
iv got an older e machine (etower 333k). The operating system that
came with it was ME the first hard drive crashed. i have an older 20
gig hard drive im putting in but it tells me to run a floppy boot
disk. i don't have one i do have a dos floppy i run it but it does not
show the hard drive now in bios it shows just fine. How do i get it to
show in dos so i can formate and install???

Most hard drive manufacturers have installation software available for
download.

Maxtor and Seagate http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/
Western Digital http://support.wdc.com/download/inde...pid=999&swid=1

If you need to access your CD drive in DOS, see
http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

Ben

Gary S. Terhune wrote:

OK, I've looked it up, mostly here,
http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=17, and it appears as I
thought -- that ME is just like all other 9x systems. Only OEM
versions are bootable, and even then, I don't believe that is true for
all Win98 or Win98SE OEM discs. And I've found reference that suggests
that the ME OEM CD is capable of wiping and reformatting (or even
repartitioning) the first hard drive if no existing ME OS is present.
Which is something that would really **** me off, since I seldom
install anything to an empty hard drive.
http://theosfiles.com/os_windows/ospg_wme.htm


From my experience auto-installing WinME from a bootable CD will wipe the
entire disk. (Actually I only did it twice, once on an empty disk, and once
on a used disk, containing a NTFS partition. Both times it was pretty
straightforward). This seems no problem for the OP, since he wanted to
reformat anyway. However, I didn't know not all ME CD's are bootable.

And I've found reference that suggests that the ME OEM CD is capable
of wiping and reformatting (or even repartitioning) the first hard drive if
no existing ME OS is present. Which is something that would really **** me
off, since I seldom install anything to an empty hard drive.

so, exzactly what would you do with an emptee drive,,,,, toss it inna bin?
(wouldnt mind coming 'round your 'ouse once a week to see what i can get outta your bin.....
sounds lika gold mine.)
http://theosfiles.com/os_windows/ospg_wme.htm

--
Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/User