Formatting My C Drive from a Recovery CD

[Verna]

I want to reformat my hard drive using a recovery CD that came w/my system. It does give me instructions but I am having a problem w/the 1st one. It says to Boot to the Emergency Recovery CD(it is bootable). Can anyone tell me how? I am using Windows 98. Please and thank you.

[Ron Martell]

"Verna" > wrote:

>I want to reformat my hard drive using a recovery CD that came w/my system. It does give me instructions but I am having a problem w/the 1st one. It says to Boot to the Emergency Recovery CD(it is bootable). Can anyone tell me how? I am using Windows 98. Please and thank you.

Just put the CD into the drive and restart the computer.

It should detect the bootable CD and boot from it. You may get a
message saying something like "press spacebar to boot from CD"

When the computer has booted from the CD you will get any additional
information or instructions you need on the screen.

Remember that doing this will totally and permanently destroy every
bit of data that is currently on the hard drive, including all of the
installed programs, all your data files and emails etc.

Good luck


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."

[Verna]

Ron, thanks for replying to my question, but I'm afraid its was not that easy. I did try that. Do you have any other suggestions w/o manually formatting the hard drive. And yes, I am aware it will wipe out the entire drive and I will have to reload software. I would rather use the Recovery CD if I could get it to boot, it fairly simple thereafter. Thanks again, Verna

"Ron Martell" wrote:

> "Verna" > wrote:
>
> >I want to reformat my hard drive using a recovery CD that came w/my system. It does give me instructions but I am having a problem w/the 1st one. It says to Boot to the Emergency Recovery CD(it is bootable). Can anyone tell me how? I am using Windows 98. Please and thank you.
>
> Just put the CD into the drive and restart the computer.
>
> It should detect the bootable CD and boot from it. You may get a
> message saying something like "press spacebar to boot from CD"
>
> When the computer has booted from the CD you will get any additional
> information or instructions you need on the screen.
>
> Remember that doing this will totally and permanently destroy every
> bit of data that is currently on the hard drive, including all of the
> installed programs, all your data files and emails etc.
>
> Good luck
>
>
> Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
> --
> Microsoft MVP
> On-Line Help Computer Service
> http://onlinehelp.bc.ca
>
> "The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."
>

[Ron Martell]

"Verna" > wrote:

>Ron, thanks for replying to my question, but I'm afraid its was not that easy. I did try that. Do you have any other suggestions w/o manually formatting the hard drive. And yes, I am aware it will wipe out the entire drive and I will have to reload software. I would rather use the Recovery CD if I could get it to boot, it fairly simple thereafter. Thanks again, Verna

Do you know how to get into the BIOS setup on your computer? On many
computers when you first turn the computer on there is some text that
appears before the Windows Startup Logo comes up. Included in that
text you will usually find instructions about entering the Setup
function. It may say "Press Delete to enter setup" or something
similar to that.

If you don't see anything like that then if you give us the make and
model of your computer then we should be able to tell you how to get
into the Setup function. Many "brand name" computers such as Compaq
or HP use special procedures for this.

Once in the Setup utility there should be a category named Chipset
Details or similar and in this category you should find an item that
describes the sequence in which the computer looks at the different
disk drives when booting up. Very often this is set up with the hard
drive as the first boot device, or perhaps the 3.5 diskette first then
the hard drive. In order to use the CDROM drive as a boot device it
has to be placed ahead of the hard drive in the sequence.


If this is too difficult for you then you might be able to make it
work by downloand a WindowsMe boot disk image from www.bootdisk.com
and creating a bootable diskette from this. Boot your computer with
that diskette and when it stops at the A:\> prompt change to the CDROM
drive letter (the boot disk will tell you what drive letter has been
assigned to the CDROM near the end of the bootup process), put your
Recovery CD into the CDROM drive and enter the command SETUP

So if the boot disk has your CDROM drive as drive D: you would enter
the following two commands:
D:
SETUP

If that does not work then enter the following command:

DIR *.EXE /P

Copy the list of file names reported and post that information back
here.

Good luck


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."