I`ve acquired a desktop at a rummage sale that came with an SCSI board and drive (quantum 4.5 G drive, PII 333 mhz processesor). It has an undesirable OS (NT,which is password protected) on it and I would like to clean off the drive and install windows 98.
How can I do this with the least amount of expenditure?
Do SCSI drives work on windows 98 just like an IDE connected drive?
I`m thinking I may have to buy a new IDE drive and remove the SCSI to make this work.
I’m pretty sure you format and fdisk a SCSI the same way you would an IDE. Shouldn’t be a problem loading Win98 either. Just format normally from a DOS prompt and load your OS. The only thing you have to be sure about with SCSI’s is setting the active partition.
There’s some good info www.fcpa.com/download/download/hard-drives/scsi_hdd_Install.pdf]here.
Beautiful. It would be nice if I gave you a link that worked. :
Try here.
**Installation of an SCSI Hard drive
Installing hard drive as a single drive:
The above is from the link.
I don`t have the SCSI unique ID number. Do I need to know this? Or does the computer know this?
I tried to fdisk and format the drive but I cant seem to get the computer to recognize the drive and associate the commands with the existing drive. I also have a Maxtor utlities disk that formats drives, but it only looks on the IDE cable and not for SCSI drives. I tried the windows 98 startup floppy and when the A: prompt came up I typed in fdisk, and it said that I dont have a drive installed.
If I let the computer boot up it will boot to NT, but then I cant do anything else because I dont have the admin or user password.
So the harddrive works, I just can`t seem to format or fdisk it.
There has to be a way!!
Is it possible that this drive is locked up because of the OS and the passwords? Is there a way to override this and just fdisk the thing? Is there a bois feature that will defeat the OS?
When I tried the win 98 install CD, everything came up fine untill it realized that there was an existing OS and it told me that it couldn`t continue with the setup.
I need to wipe this harddrive clean, help!!
Shit, man. This is a sticky one. Give me a few minutes!
What the hell. I’m pretty stumped, whuckfistle. I’m sorry. I’ll keep thinking and post back if I come up with anything. In the meantime, hopefully one of the smarter Dopers will reply with a solution.
try booting from A drive with a dos disk, use fdisk /mbr then you should be able to go into the fdisk utility delete the existing partition and repartition it. warning this will destroy all of the info on the drive. fdisk/mbr wipes the master boot record
Sorry that may not work this sight has good instructions on how to do it. http://fdisk.radified.com/
Can’t you boot from your 98 CD-ROM, and do a format/fdisk/whatever from the Win98 directory? Or does it need special SCSI drivers or something?
Point one: Your trouble is not because it’s a SCSI disk.
Point two: Your trouble is because you’re trying to use FDISK to remove an NTFS partition.
In other words, you need a utility that can delete the NTFS partition before you can run FDISK on it. Do you have access to a Windows NT/2000/XP CD? If so, you could start the setup routine, delete your existing partition, and then quit the install.
Alternatively, you could try using the delpart utility on this page.
Geek, and Panther, thanks for the help.
So far, no good though.
Panther`s Link was for a typical fdisk manuever, which I have tried. Unsuccesfully.
I need something atypical for this, it seems.
Bernse, - No, and Im not sure yet. (Ive tried this and it won`t let me get to that part, it just quits at the mention of another OS).
I would like to just clear off the harddrive, regardless of NTSF or FAT or any data that may be on there.
Keith , - thanks, no I dont have access to those OSs utilities.
That delpart utility looks like a winner. I will try it when I get home and report back later.
Thanks all, (for now)!!
FDISK does have an option for deleting a NON-DOS partition. Under option 3 “Delete prtition or logical drive” there is an option 4 to “Delete NON-DOS partion”
Once that’s done create a new primary partition, exit FDISK, reboot using to the Win98 CD and start the setup on the now clean disk.
My personal advice would be to get a 20-40GB IDE drive instead. 4.5GB is awfully small for today’s application software.
If you still can’t get DOS FDISK to work, you might try using tomsrtbt. This is a bootable Linux floppy with a bunch of system repair tools on it. Linux fdisk will definitely be able to clean up your disk. The only possible problem is that Linux SCSI drivers are space-expensive, so I can’t guarantee that it will recognize your SCSI adapter. If you know what chipset the SCSI card uses, you check for yourself from the site above.
You need to make a boot disk with the drivers for the SCSI adapter. This will allow DOS (and the Maxtor utility) to see the hard drive. What is the make and model of the card?
The delpart utility will work for this, go down the page on the link I gave you to the NTFS section. There is a link to the delpart utility and directions on how to do it.
ding , ding , diddley frikkin` ding… we have a winner.
Keith T, and Panther were correct in suggesting the delpart utility. Thanks guys!!!
It took all of five minutes from the time I downloaded the file to a floppy and ran it on the computer in question. It didn`t accept the disk at first but I booted the system to dos and then requested the A:/ prompt and got the floppy dir. with the delpart .exe file on it and then just typed in “delpart” and it ran. I had to hit the enter button twice and the drive was cleaned up.
Worked great, thanks again!!
Win-98 is up and running.
If you are using a SCSI adaptor it will have its own onboard Bios and utilities.
During a normal bootup all you do is wait for the ‘SCSI Bios load succesful’ report.
At the bottom of your screen there will be a message that states,
‘hit Alt-Del’ or some other key combination.
This get you into the host adaptors SCSI drive options, there will be one menu selection to deal with the host adaptor itself, and another marked something like ‘disk utilities’.
Select the latter option and there will appear another menu, one option of which will allow you to format the drive using differant protocols like FAT32 or NTFS.
Thanks Dave, I will make the note for future reference.