Reformatting
 

Ok, due to my stupidity, I have totally screwed up my computer. What happened was that I tried booting into Windows 98, and it gave me an "Enter the path to the command script (eg: C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND.COM)" error, and the path I gave failed.

So then I tried running my recovery disk, and it failed to load it, giving me an error basically saying that I have to use FDISK. Now, whenever I startup my computer, it always shows a GNU grub screen (assuming due to the fact that I had SuSE installed).

This is all happening on a Windows 98 SE system, so does anyone have any way to fix this? I have also tried doing "format: c" instead of typing "fdisk" (w/o quotes), but it said something like: "Cannot reformat drive C:".

Re: Reformatting
 

Do you have a working computer around? Try sticking the drive in that.

What happened before this? Did something go wrong, or did you just turn it on one morning?

Also check your startup disk; I'll send you an IMG of one of mine if you need it.

I think your drive is still good, but something went wrong and now WinLoader can't find command.com (it's also C:\command.com)

Re: Reformatting
 

1. Just this one.

2. Nothing. All I did was highlight the command.com file in my C: drive (while in SUSE), and attempted to reboot into Win98.

3. I only got a recovery CD, which won't load.

4. That's kinda/basically what Brandon said when I asked him about this.

Thanks also.

Re: Reformatting
 

Selected it while booted into Suse? I don't think you can do that...

On the GRUB screen, does it give you an option to choose between Windows or Linux?

Re: Reformatting
 

Nope, it doesn't. I restarted my computer, and instead of booting into Linux/SUSE, I chose Windows, and then it happened...:(

No, not that I'm aware of. Although I'm unsure right now becuase I reinstalled SUSE, and it seems to be working fine for now. I didn't see an option before though for it.

Re: Reformatting
 

I've been helping Eric for a while now, he is having many problems and stuff. I have a question, if he boots up using knoppix(bootable linux), and then wants to format his C:, how should he do it? Go to Terminal and.... ? Can anybody give exact steps?
Thanks
-Bharat

Re: Reformatting
 

You can do your formatting from within QTParted.

Re: Reformatting
 

I can't find that on SUSE, though I'm sure it's on Knoppix (which I'm gonna run now). Here's a way Tekno told me also:

in a terminal window.

Re: Reformatting
 

I am not so much into Linux so more research tomorrow, till then if by someone else can give steps to format using knoppix, it'd be great

The deal here is that he can't get into DOS while booting, we've tried almost all buttons. The floppy drive doesnt work. The windows recovery CD(s) wont work either, it says that it cant reformat for some odd reason. So i figured out we could use bootable linux(knoppix) or something, what do you experts say?

Also, I suggested he use Mandrake, because I've found it the easiest to install when it comes to dual-booting(atleast for me). I know its a matter of opinion and choice, but thats just my suggestion.

Re: Reformatting
 

The first thing I would try would be to boot with the recovery CD, but instead of letting the CD fully boot, hold down on F8 while the CD is starting. If the CD is based on some iteration of DOS, it will give you an option for "Safe Mode Command Prompt". This will give you a good old DOS prompt. Most system recovery CDs I have used (IBM and HP) have fdisk on the CD-ROM. I would then type "fdisk /status". This will tell you if DOS can see the hard drive and its partitions. After that, a good "fdisk /mbr" will remove GRUB (if thats what you want).

If the CD is not MS-DOS based, a Windows 95 or Windows 98 install cd will suffice for DOS.

Also you might want to try the GRUB command line. At the grub screen press C. Then you will get a prompt "grub>". At that prompt, type root (hd0,x), where x is the numerical partition on which Windows/DOS is installed. Then type "chainloader +1" and then type boot. You can find the number x thru experimentation or from a partition manager.

Good luck, and PM me if you need any help.

Re: Reformatting
 

If you'd like to salvage just windows and forget about linux for now, boot up from a 98 boot disk (or CD), and from a dos prompt do:

fdisk /mbr

Then reboot. It should reset the master boot record to something windows likes. I was never a big fan of grub, so I can't help you much on getting the dual boot working. I'm a LILO user... It's easier to use and configure than grub IMHO.

Re: Reformatting
 

Knoppix. Fun.

You'll want to use FDisk. Type 'fdisk'. But, read this Fdisk page by Redhat first: http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/l...ode-fdisk.html

Re: Reformatting
 

Venka: I'll try the CD idea. I don't get GRUB anymore, because I reinstalled SUSE last night, and now it shows it's booter (which is basically good).

Texan: Thanks. I've looked at that, but it just basically talks about the tips and such on adding a partition. But I'll keep in mind the warnings.

If all else fails, I'm just gonna boot up Knoppix, and do my mkfs.vfat way, hopefully that'll work.

** Edit: I'd like to state that I cannot access my A: drive (due to a past event, I cannot insert floppies :'( **

Re: Reformatting
 

Getting another HD is also another good thing if you can afford it. Just copy and paste your important data into the new disk, then format the old and install a new OS.

Re: Reformatting
 

Actually, I was just gonnna get a whole new tower if it came down to that honestly. But yea, if not even Knoppix can fix this, I'll just wait or something for a new tower ** I love computer expo's :D **

Re: Reformatting
 

Would running fixmbr work (given the fact that I'd be running it off a CD *recovery CD*)?

Re: Reformatting
 

I have encountered this problem the first time I repartitioned the drive too :) I was really scared and wiped the drive. As I found out later I didnt have to... I think what you are experiencing is similar.

I used Partition Magic, but your software may support this too. Basically, the problem is that you cant' have more than 4 primary paritions. If you try to create more, some programs will "help out" and change the fs type of one of the partitions. To the program such a partition will appear as "hidden". To Windows it will appear to be garbage. Sometimes this change happens even with fewer than 4 partitions on the disk.

What can you do to fix this? In Partition Magic there is an option under "advanced" to "unhide" the partition. If you use some other program, there is probably something similar. If not, all you have to do is manually change the partition type in the partition table. There should be programs available for manual partition table editing.

This may also be a problem with your Grub configuration. It may help to take a look at the grub.conf file (it may also be called menu.lst).

Re: Reformatting
 

I did use PartitionMagic. My problem is that I can't run it now (I tried, using WINE, and it said that it can't find or open some driver file).

Re: Reformatting
 

** Update Idea **

I was browsing Google for the nth time in the past 2 days *:D*, and came across this:

http://portal.suse.com/sdb/en/2004/0...booting91.html

Does anyone know if this would work?

Re: Reformatting
 

It might possibly. Try it, it won't hurt anything.

Re: Reformatting
 

I did try this, and it didn't seem to work (dunno why).

I followed the steps completely, and and said something like "Driver Update Status: *something that I forgot*".

Re: Reformatting
 

"fixing" the mbr won't help you at all. It will only remove grub
(which allows you to boot into either SUSE or windows) and will only
let you boot into windows, which is broken.

Re: Reformatting
 

Yea, I read more on this on Microsoft's website also, and it said it might make everything worse anyways.

Re: Reformatting
 

If you used Partition Magic, then this is (almost) certainly the problem you are having. Now to get into Partition Magic...

When you installed Partition Magic it asked you to make boot floppies. If you had those, you could boot into dos with a dos version of Partition Magic running. But i think you said you dont have a floppy drive. Try this. Have someone install Partition Magic and make the disks. Then burn a bootable cd with dos on it, and the contents of the PartitionMagic floppies. It might work. I have also seen a recovery cd image somewhere on the net that had partition magic on it. However, that would be illegal to use since you'd be getting a pirated copy :D But since you own a copy of partition magic anyway... Decide for yourself, im not going to advertise illegal software here :)

Re: Reformatting
 

Hm...good idea. I'll install PM on this machine tomorrow (heading off to bed right now), and create the boot disks and such.

If anyone would like to guide me through this, just PM me *at this moment, I think it'd very advisable that someone do guide me through all this*

Re: Reformatting
 

Well, it seems my computer took a turn for the worse...here's my new situation:

SuSE 9.1 Personal and Windows won't load anymore (it seems like I only have 1 partition, and I believe it's 2.03 Gigs). So, if anyone knows of a way to fix this, please tell me. Here's what I did that caused this:

Someone referenced me to SeaTools made by SeaGate (which is my hard drive manufacture'er (sp?). So, I ran that, and started the diagnostics testing until I had to quit when it first started. That caused my hard drive to not have a swap and linux partition anymore.

I was thinking of doing a ZeroWrite (aka ZeroFill), and just reinstall Windows 98 SE, what does anyone think of this idea??

Re: Reformatting
 

Well, too bad you didnt trust me :) I am sure Partition Magic would have fixed this in under 5 minutes, because this is exactly what happened to me before.

You dont have to zero-fill in order to reinstall Windows. The garbage data on the disk will not be in FAT anyway and will just be treated as free space and get overwritten eventually. Just delete all partitions and create one FAT32 partition on the disk. You can do that by booting into DOS and running FDISK. I think the Win98 install CD has an option to boot into DOS.

Before you do this you may want to double-check the partitioning with Partition Magic just to make sure everything is dead ;) How did you determine that you only have one partition on the disk? If you did this by running Partition Magic, this may be caused by overlapping partitions. In this case Partition Magic will show one partition marked as "corrupted". You can sometimes fix this by manually editing the partition table. However, because you said the system won't boot anymore, the data may be lost :(

Re: Reformatting
 

Well, no need to fix my floppy drive, it is finally working excellent. Here's what I did:

1. Started fdisk, and checked the partitions
2. Deleted the 2 (which all there were) partitions
3. Created a primary DOS partition
4. Rebooted w/ startup disk in CD-ROM drive
5. Reformated drive

Thanks though much

*Thanks to Greg, Astro, and everyone else who helped me through this ordeal, it was much appreciated :D*