I'm trying to partition, format and reinstal w98se on a 400 Gb drive using the advices we had been talked about.
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To put it shortly:

I used ME bootdisk custom from bootdisc.com (maybe a bad idea).
From this boot disc, I used fdisk to partition the hdd:
First I deleted the existing Primary Dos partition

Then I created:

Prinary Dos partition: 10% of total hdd, or +- 38Gb
Extended Dos partition 90% or +- 344 Gb
Logical Dos Partition 100% of the extended Dos partition

Results as follow:

C: 1 PriDos 38162 Unknown 10%
2 ExtDos 34338 9Unkown 90
%

So far everything is ok. Part 1 is 38162 Mb and part 2 is 343389 Mb, the "9" being pushed next to "Unkown" because of a well known display bug.

The problem is when I formated the partitions:

First it told me to reboot windows: Impossible since windows is NOT installed and the drive where it was installed before is physicaly disconnected. So I didn't reboot and went ahead with fdisk.

When format C: was done, the size of drive C: was 145 Gb!! The same size as the Primary Dos partition which existed before on this hdd and which normaly had been deleted and replaced by a 38Gb partition!

Finaly trying to install windows, first it gave me warning so that I have a disk-cache utility that I need to remove. I ingored this warning. The setup froze after reading "copying files needed for setup".
Trying with the original w98 bootdisk, no warning, but after "copying files needed for setup" it doesn't do anything and display "A\:" with the flashing cursor waiting for a command...

I used the updated fdisk from the BIGHDD pack, and it displayed also the expected amount for the drive partitions: Drive C: being 38Gb, drive D: 343 GB.

When using format from this same package, it shows
"Checking 143 Gb", which is theoricaly impossible.

Please Help

Update:

I re-partitioned from the begining using the BHDD30.zip versions of scandisk and format.

Now format display the right volume (38 Gb) for drive C: and hopefuly will format accordingly.

I can already draw the conclusion that we shouldn't use the bootable ME disk - custom from bootdisk.com.
Its Fdisk doesn't seem to delete partitions properly.

AFAIK if you do not reboot, changes are NOT "sensed".

jaclaz

no, I rebooted several times, and the fdisk on the ME - custom bootdisk didn't delete the original partition.