Unsolved
This post is more than 5 years old
4 Posts
0
5097
October 25th, 2004 14:00
Formating new Hard Drive
Last week, the hard drive on my Inspiron 2500 (windows me) failed. I ordered a new drive from Dell. The original drive was an IBM 10GB. The new one is a Fujitsu 30GB.
I installed the drive in the machine. When I enter the bios setup, the new hard disk is recognized and listed as a 30006MB drive, and the serial number is listed. I used the setup utility to have the machine boot from the CD. I then followed Dell doscument FA1057331, "How do I format my hard drive using the Dell™ Windows® Millennium Edition (Me) Operating System CD?". I followed directions, tried it, and after Step 5, formating the drive, I typed in "extract ebd.cab format.com /l c:" as directed. The extraction routine runs, then says:
Cabinet ebd.cab
ERROR: Path is invalid: c:
A:\>
ERROR: Path is invalid: c:
A:\>
I've also tried the Dell tutorial document titled:"How to Format/Partition a Hard Drive". I have tried rebooting with a bootable CD (the Windows ME system disk that came with the machine) using the DOS command: "Format C: /S" at the A: prompt. The screen reads "Bad command or file name". I really don't know what the problem is. Do I need a different boot disk? How can I get one? Thanks for your help.
No Events found!
bacillus
2 Intern
•
14.4K Posts
0
October 25th, 2004 15:00
stephencastella
1 Message
0
October 11th, 2011 12:00
Have you tried to run fdisk from the bootable cd? You must first run an fdisk to create a primary partition on your drive to which the OS can be loaded. During the process you may elect to use all 30G for the primary drive or you can partition (split up) the 30 into additional "drives". For instance you can make 10G the primary and two secondary drives each of 10G labled D: and E: respectively, or you can make just a D: drive of 20G, etc. The possabilities are quite numerous, but you can only make two extended partitions beyond the primary. That means you can only have a C, D, and E drive. They are still ALL ON THE ONE HARD DRIVE, but divided into individual partitions. After you run fdisk, and select which partition(s) is/are your primary/extended, then you can restart the computer to install the operating system. It will be at that point that the new hard drive will be formatted to accept the WinMe O/S.
My recommendation, based on a similar experience, is Partion the drive thrice. Make the C: drive your primary and make a D: and E: drive both as logical drives. Use The C: drive for installing O/S, applications, drivers, etc. Use the D: and E: drives for storing your files and data. You needn't worry about converting one of them to a backup partition insomuch as you have the bootable CD and should your HD crash again, you can simply restore the OS from there and no risk losing your data from the D: or E: drives (unless you elect to delete them when you run the fdisk program again).
Hope this helps.
jackshack
6.4K Posts
0
October 11th, 2011 18:00
stephencastellani;
Welcome to the Dell Forum. Here you will be able to converse with fellow Dell owners, help solve problems, and perhaps learn more about your computer as well.
You might want to watch for the dates of any post for which you are contemplating a reply. This particular one is just a few days short of 7 years old, and I'm sure that the problem was resolved long ago.
Best of luck to you, and I hope you find participation in this forum to be as rewarding as I have.
Jack