My virus problem seems to be lingering inside critical system files, and AVG doesn't seem to be picking up all its components. I decided the only thing left to do was to format and reinstall.
I went to bootdisk.com at http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm and downloaded the DOS version 6.22, then I extracted from the archive and put the files on a floppy disk. Restarting with the disk in brings me up to a MS-DOS window as it should, but I cannot get it to format. I tried format c:, format c:\, format -c:, format -c:\ and some other silly variations. It tells me I'm not using the proper parameter format. How do I do this?
I have never had good fortune with doing this in the past. I have only had to do it twice before, but both times the disks I used were corrupted and did not do it properly, but that was years ago anyway.
ID:186055
 Aug 30 2005, 1:27 pm
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Aug 30 2005, 1:37 pm
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Jon88
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"format C:" should work fine. You can do "format /?" to get the program's helpfile-ish thing.
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Oddly, this time it was telling me something different. It no longer tells me it's a bad input for a parameter, but it tells me the drive is invalid. And I cannot change directory to the C drive either. It doesn't recognise the C drive when in DOS?
I don't understand what's going on or how to fix it. Any suggestions? | |
Loduwijk wrote:
Oddly, this time it was telling me something different. It no longer tells me it's a bad input for a parameter, but it tells me the drive is invalid. And I cannot change directory to the C drive either. It doesn't recognise the C drive when in DOS? If you have XP or somesuch the drive is almost certainly formatted as NTFS. DOS can't(normally) read NTFS volumes. It just does FAT. | |
A somewhat cheap idea might be to start installing another copy of Windows on there. I'm pretty sure during the installation there's an option to format your drive.
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Jon88 wrote:
If you have XP or somesuch the drive is almost certainly formatted as NTFS. DOS can't(normally) read NTFS volumes. It just does FAT. Then is there still any way I can format and reinstall? [edit] I just hit properties on my C drive and it says "File System: Fat32" | |
DarkView has a point. The windows installation ALWAYS asks you if you want to delete a partition/reformat the hard drive. It's a no-fail thing. Just go along with a fresh install and you'll see it in one of thet first few steps.
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Sorry, I should have been clearer. DOS supports FAT16, not FAT32. And like Audeuro mentioned in his post, DarkView has a point.
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I had assumed it would, which is why I started that at first. Then it told me there might be problems if I try to install a second OS on the same partition, and asked me if I really wanted to do so. That is why I went looking for a way to format first.
I will try again and see what I can do. Thank you. | |
Loduwijk wrote:
I had assumed it would, which is why I started that at first. Then it told me there might be problems if I try to install a second OS on the same partition, and asked me if I really wanted to do so. That is why I went looking for a way to format first. if nothing else the format command for dos is: format c:/s where /s is to make it so it copies the system files | |