I built, with the aid of a clever friend, my own desktop PC a year ago and we decided to put Win2000 on it and partition the 20Gb drive in half. Win2000 didn't work with AOSmell (my parents are computr virgins and AOSmell is the only internet program that doesn't scare them) so I put my copy of Win98se onto it. Unfortunately this is where I have the problem with the partitioning.

When formatting the drive, it would only format one 10Gb partition, saying that the other partition was not a type recognised to format (or something like that, was a long time ago) and I'm presuming this is because it was on Win2000 before. I left it like that (impatiant and feeling thick at the time you see), and carried on with my half a hard drive. Now I'd rather like that other half back and the clever friend is very busy with his last year at uni, so can anyone else help please?

I don't have partition magic, though I may be able to get clever friend to post me a copy, but help without that or with somethign I can download for free would be best. Thanks!

 

Is the unrecognised partition NTFS? W98 only recognises FAT32 AFAIK

 

Just upgrade the lot to Windows XP, better than both the ones stated and with NTFS it loads games/files etc alot quicker (win 98 se took 5 mins to load unreal 2, xp took 1 min ) and snailOL works fine

Tony

 

Slight problem with that, do not have upgrade to XP money. Honestly can't remember what it says, think I may have to wait for ythe end of exams after all.

 

How much do you want to spend?
If you check out some of the computer companies (www.scan.co.uk for instance) its more than affordable

Tony

 

Holey Moley that's cheap!!! Have saved that link because I have a job interview in a week so willlook at it again if I get lucky.

 

How did you partition the drive last time, if 2000 done it then it will be NTFS which 98 does'nt recognise,

Just boot the system up using a 98 boot disc or summin and then format the partition from dos...this will change the file system to FAT16/32 which 98 recognises...

If that fails boot up the system with a boot disk (98 boot disc or summin) and kill the partition off that you cannot format (noteing that you will lose all the data on it), then create a new extended partition from the now free'd space, assuming you have 98 on the primary/active partition...

Hope this makes sense,

HTH,

John.

 

Garnet, get a copy of partition magic, then you can utilise the extra space as required. Probably deleting, the back end partitions, re-creatimg then formatting.
Alternatively.... after deleting it/them, create a smallish extra
partition (2Gb), format it in FAT. Load win2k on it.
You'll have a dual boot, 98 or 2K. The 2k will see the rest of the drive anyway.