Evil

OK i cant seem to format my computer.

I made an MSDOS startup disk but that didnt work.

I cant find my Millenium Editon startup disk.

And when I try to uninstall XP to go back down to ME and make a startup disk it says it cant go back to the previous operating system.

Any ideas?

Let's see if i can give a little more detail.

I have a Windows XP CD

I do not have my Windows ME CD


I need to make a startup disk. Now going to the floppy drive in my computer and choosing msdos startup disk works but once i restart my computer i go into dos mode and type in format c: but it says bad command or file name.

I tried to go back down to ME but when I press uninstall Windows XP it says cannot go back to previous operating system.

I tried re-installing Windows XP and that didn't help me either.


If there are any further questions, ask away, but I think I just explained most all of it.

Oh and one last thing. If I'm into photo editing and digital graphics should I use XP Pro, XP Home, or what OS?

XP Pro.

Or Win2k.

I prefer the latter.

Windows 2000 is a workstation OS. XP Pro is too, but win2k is more stable and has better resource management.

Also, the xp style themes eat gobs of memory, not good at all for a workstation.

MS-DOS cannot read NTFS partitions, even thought you made in in XP. Do a google search for NTFS DOS. Or I have a freeware program called partition remover. You can format it this way- repartition the driver and install the OS.

Actually if someone sent me the Windows ME startup disk files I would be fine. send em to [email protected] and post here to let me know you sent em.

OK you know what if someone could like either talk me thru it on the boards or on aim or msn would be cool.

Download format.com (or .exe) and fdisk and put it on your MSDOS disk, then you can partition and format the disk

I know that my Windows 2000 disk is bootable, and is capable of formating/partitioning prior to installation, as well as just removing the old WINNT folder then installing fresh.

If it says bad command or filename then format isn't on the floppy disk.
You will want to put fdisk.exe and format.exe onto the floppy.

Boot to the bootup disk, use fdisk, delete your partition.
Reboot.

Now, I would suggest you stay with Windows XP, or with Windows 2000. In either case, you can just boot with the CD, and allow windows to create you an NTFS partition.

If you want to stick with windows ME, create a new primary dos partition using fdisk, then reboot, then use format C:
Then reinstall WinME or Win98 or whatever you want...

Look at this site for a suitable bootdisk

now all i need to do is find out what partitioning is and that'll make sense

Quote:

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Originally posted by duc
now all i need to do is find out what partitioning is and that'll make sense

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Partitions are address spaces of bits on your drive.

Your C drive is your C parititon.

If you have two partitions on a single drive you'll have two logical drives (C:\ and D:\).

Do you have an orginal windows xp cd (or a good pirate:D) ? Boot off of it and the xp setup will wipe out / create / format your partitions (if you tell it to do so).

If you need help I'll walk you though it [email protected], I have done it 30+ times.


Backup ANY important data!!!!!!