Hi,
I am a bit more awake now. In the system column where it says unknown,
i want to put Fat32, I'm sure you realised i meant that. I said dos,
but i meant Fat32. As i am trying to load Win9x, i'm sure you know i
meant Fat32. Please excuse my slip, i want that column to read Fat32.
Hi Double Helix,
Thank you for post. I will do that if you think it will help, but the
partition actually looks alright. I did make a smaller partition called
'Ext Dos' (extended dos) to see if it would come out as Fat32, cos i
can see no way to tell Fdisk that i want it formatted in Fat 32.
This extra little partition appears to have no system, which i found
odd, maybe it just does the type thats already on the disk ... ?
I don't want that smaller partition anyway, so later i will try to
have the whole HD back as one single partition. I hope it does not
then end up with no system on it, like the little one i did.
***
How did you get to FDISK if you can't boot from a floppy? ***
Good question. Yes it took me a while.
As i mentioned earlier, i have a couple of floppies which will operate
as they should, and produce a working result on the monitor.
One is the "Partition Magic floppy 1 0f 2"
Another is the "Table Doctor rescue floppy"
Another is "NTLDR is missing" copied by me from somewhere on the web.
Why these ? all other floppies just cause a crash, except one causes
a restart, again and again.
Anyway, i found that by interrupting the Table Doctor, after it had
started, but before it had finished reading, this caused a line to
appear asking for command.com,
If i then replace the floppy with a bootdisk floppy (for 95 or 98 or
98se) and enter the path to command .com "A:\COMMAND.COM" the PC will
then proceed to use the floppy driven dos more-or-less.
I say more-or-less because it wont use it all, only some of it.
This is what i meant by silliness and unexpected behaviour from the PC.
My opinion is that routines on the floppy, that only involve the floppy
will work Ok, routines that involve using any PC routines cause
problems.
But thats only what i think, i don't really know whats happening, thats
just the way it seems to me.
And thats how i get to Fdisk, but it won't boot from a floppy.
And i can't find any way to tell Fdisk to format in Fat32, but i feel
sure i have used it for that in the past.
So maybe i am missing something, or maybe not all of Fdisk is showing
up on this recalcitrant machine.
*********
Blue Zee,
Option three is to delete partition.
I am happy to try that, if you think that this is the way to instruct
Fdisk to do the formatting in Fat32, instead of the 'Unknown' or the
blank that i have gotten on my little trial partition of 200 megs.
Not being that familiar with Fdisk, is it possible that a blank means
its in Fat32 ... ?
And that "Unknown" simply means 'its not Fat' .....
I have met tasks that do rely on the user knowing how to read the
often cryptic notes from the designer.
I used Fdisk to make a little partition of 200 megs, to see if it
would come out as Fat32, it came out as a blank system.
As you can see from my attached picture.
DoubleHelix says to delete the partition, then make it again.
Well that is very similar to your suggestion, and i think i will try to
put the whole of the hard drive back as one single partition, and i
hope that Fdisk will put it as Fat32 and not 'unknown' or 'blank'
I will do that later, and post back to let you know how it goes.
For now i must get on with other stuff,
Regards, John
