kramsret Posted December 28, 2002 Report Share Posted December 28, 2002 I've dual booted Win98 and Linux for a couple of years. But now my Windows is broken, and I cant fix it. I wanted to do the semi-annual Windows reinstall, because it needs the cleansing. For no reason, from within Linux I deleted all the files on the Win C: drive. Then formatted it. When I booted the Win98 CD, it wouldn't recognize the C: drive, saying it had to fdisk the entire drive. When I press the key to do that, Windows gives me: "A disk error was detected while writing a new boot record to your first hard disk". My only option is to end setup. When I do, I get: "memory allocation error. Cannot load COMMAND. System halted." I've tried using Win fdisk to delete ALL partitions on disk 1, then reinstalling. Everything fdisked fine, but same problem in the end. I also repartitioned using diskdrake. Same problem. Lilo boots to Linux (which is on hdb), but Windows is no way nohow going to load itself on my hda. Anyone? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pzatch Posted December 28, 2002 Report Share Posted December 28, 2002 Try to find a disk checking utility from the hard drive manufacturer. If the boot sector on the disk is bad there are ways to use the disk as storage, just not a bootable disk. but thats the worst case. Have you tried removing lilo totaly and reloading partitioning? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ral Posted December 28, 2002 Report Share Posted December 28, 2002 Might be obvious...but just in case...have you already formatted drive C: to be a FAT32 partition? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cannonfodder Posted December 28, 2002 Report Share Posted December 28, 2002 The correct sequence would be to 1. fdisk /mbr or lilo -U to remove lilo as a bootloader. This helps the windows installer find the C: drive. 2. Boot off a windows 98 floppy and run format /s c: to format with system files. 3. Install windows 4. Use Mandrake's CD1 in rescue mode to reinstall lilo. Maybe you can backtrack? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kramsret Posted December 28, 2002 Author Report Share Posted December 28, 2002 Thanks much. Cannon, your solution worked. My disk drive, it ends up, is not broke. Funny, I had already tried every step you posted, except I didn't format /s from the boot disk. Based on my limited knowledge, I can't see why that would make a difference, but it did. Although, the Windows CD would not setup normally still. It gave me an error like "disk compression is enabled, unable to continue". But when I booted with CDROM support, and ran setup.exe, it installed fine. Thanks again! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest tcreek Posted December 28, 2002 Report Share Posted December 28, 2002 If you contact Microsoft tech support they will confer what I tell you here, Your windows is not broke, That is a "feature" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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