Formatting my hard drive...

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Mr. tech

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I'm using a Windows 98 Bootdisk to format a hard drive. I've done this previously so I don't think I'm doing anything wrong..

I load it up so that it says A:\>. I type in format c: /s and it normally works however it's saying Invalid Drive Specification

Any ideas what is wrong?
 
your in the A prompt, it says this cause it doesn't know the C drive exsists, now if it said C:\> then you could use the format command.

and yea delete patition first.
 
I did delete the partion and then recreated it... After that I tried the formar command. But still it didn't work...
 
I just followed this tutorial...

Reboot your computer, and it should load up into DOS, when you get there, it should say "A:\>"

Type fdisk, and then press ENTER.

You might receive the following message:

Your computer has a disk larger than 512 MB. This version of Windows includes improved support for large disks, resulting in more efficient use of disk space on large drives, and allowing disks over 2 GB to be formatted as a single drive.

Press Y and then press ENTER

After you press ENTER, the following Fdisk Options menu is displayed:

1. Create DOS partition or Logical DOS Drive
2. Set active partition
3. Delete partition or Logical DOS Drive
4. Display partition information
5. Change current fixed disk drive

Note that option 5 is available only if you have two physical hard disks in the computer.

Press 3, to delete your current partition, follow the instructions on the screen, until your partition is deleted. You should go back to the first menu

Press 1 to select the Create DOS partition or Logical DOS Drive menu option, and then press ENTER. Then press 1 to select the Create Primary DOS Partition menu option, and then press ENTER.

After you press ENTER, you receive the following message:
Do you wish to use the maximum available size for primary DOS partition?

After you receive this message, use one of the following methods, depending on the file system that you selected.

Press Y, and then press ENTER. (unless you want to make smaller partitions, usually for the more advanced user)

Press ESC, and then press ESC to quit the Fdisk tool and return to a command prompt.

How to format the partition:

After you create the partitions, you must format the partitions:

When a command prompt is displayed, type format c: /s, and then press ENTER. This command transfers the system files and should only be used when you format drive C (or your "active" drive).

When you successfully run the Format.com tool, you receive the following message:

WARNING, ALL DATA ON NON-REMOVABLE DISK DRIVE C: WILL BE LOST!

Proceed with Format? Press Y, and then press ENTER to format drive C.

After the format procedure is finished, you receive the following message:

Volume label (11 characters, ENTER for none)?

NOTE: This is an optional feature that you can use to type a name for the drive. You can either type an 11-character name for the drive, or you can leave it blank by pressing ENTER.
 
The system has potentially lost its CMOS settings. This is a common problem that frequently occurs, especially with older computers.
 
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