trying to partition extended dos version

[computer_hopeless2]

ok, so having tons of problems with my windows so my girlfriend came over with partition magic and wiped my computer from scratch to reformat and put win98 on my computer, but when we were trying to partition DOS  and reformat the computer to put win98 on it, it would get to a point that said trying to revive(not sure if that is the proper word it used) allocation unit 325, 326, then would say reformat failed....and it continued to do that continuously, how do i get my computer to reformat and does the sentence trying to allocate those units, and failing to reformat mean my hard drive is burnt?  Please any ideas or information would be great...

[GX1_Man]

It may be that your hard drive is dying. You do not need Partition Magic to format the drive tro reinstall Windows 98. Just download the appropriate boot disk from www.bootdisk.com

If that goes well, you just type in e:setup with your Windows 98 CD in the drive.

[computer_hopeless2]

ok but my computer wont format anything, does that matter?  I have the win98 cd already, so i just put that in and now that my computer is completely blank type in e:/setup?

[computer_hopeless2]

ok so i tried to do that, it says boot disk failure insert system disk and press enter, so i inserted system disk and got the same result, any ideas?

[GX1_Man]

You have to boot with a bootdisk in the floppy drive. Just download the Win98SE bootdisk and then double click on the file with a blank floppy in the drive to creat the boot disk.

[computer_hopeless2]

ok so i did what you said, and got a 98 boot disk from bootdisk.com...now this is what my screen says... using DPMS DOS protected mode services.
cache size \: 7670KB (xms)
minimum cache size:1024 KB
write-through dives: A B

Current options:
/MLX   PROGRAM IS LOADED INTO CONVENTIONAL AND XMS MEMORY USING DPMS
/BL=16  LOOKAHEAD BUFFER IS IN CONVENTINAL MEMORY, SIZE IS IN KB
/LEND=ON  LEND MEMORY TO OTHER APPLICATIONS- 6646 KB AVAILABLE
/DELAY=OFF WRITE DELAY IS DISABLED, CACHING IS WRITE-THROUGH

CALDERA DR-DOS 7.03
COPYRIGHT (c) 1976, 1998 CALDERA, INC.  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
(DR DOS) a:\>E:SETUP
COMMAND OR FILENAME NOT RECOGNIZED


SO WHAT DO I DO NEXT?

[computer_hopeless2]

ALSO, I HAD TO DOWNLOAD THE BOOTDISK ONTO CD AS THE COMPUTER THAT IS WORKING IN THE HOUSE DOSENT HAVE A FLOPPY DRIVE, SO I WENT INTO BIOS SETUP ON MY COMPUTER AND CHANGED THE FIRST BOOT TO CDROM

[GX1_Man]

I don't know what you download, but with "CALDERA DR-DOS 7.03 " there it is definitely not a Windows 98 boot disk. Try again to download the correct one-  Windows98SE OEM is what you want.

[GX1_Man]

Get it on this page, about halfway down:

http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

[computer_hopeless2]

ok so i did that again...redownloaded the se oem 98 disk and did the same thing, the prompt was exactly what i said in the last thing....same thing happened......

[Windows98]

If you want your computer completeley erae try http://www.killdisk.com By the way I would run scandisk /all /surface to check for bad clusters sounds like your hard drive have some bad sectors

[computer_hopeless2]

my computer is completely erased already, and how do i run that scan disk?  when i get the A:\> prompt?

[computer_hopeless2]

ok so this is what im getting now....(while i pull out my hair...lol)  ive gotten to the A prompt and typed in format C:  so it starts and this is what it says...

Checking existing disk format
saving uniformat information
verifying 2047.31m
trying to recover allocation unit 334, 325, 326

not ready
format terminated

Then another a prompt...whats going on???

[GX1_Man]

Is this after the DR DOS message? DR-DOS only recognized 2 gig drives, and never recognized NTFS formatted drives, so you would have to try with the appropriate boot disk.

Try here:

http://freepctech.com/pc/002/files010.shtml

If you keep getting that message, the drive may have given it up.

[GX1_Man]

I think that DR-DOS/Caldera message is from Partition Magic. That's what it uses.