More Brain-deadedness, I think I think?

(This continues a thread from the HARDWARE Forum concerning trying to recognize, partition and format a new system c/o (1) WD 40gb and (1) WD 120GB drive (120GB as slave) on a new P4 2.5 Ghz box with 512 Ram and no OS installed)
See "Braindead Time" for title in HARDWARE forum)

I managed to finally get the HDDs recognized, partitioned and formatted using Western Digital's Data Lifeguard software and thought I was in hog-heaven until I tried to load WIN98SE via the boot-disk and CD-ROM. WD's LifeGuard had told me that all was ready for the arrival of "The Blessed Event ", but it lied on me, it did.

Because as how it ain't working.

Dagnab thing is giving me fits and starts here.

Finally got the drives recognized and "formatted" by LifeGuard, but then on trying to install WIN98SE I run into the interesting problem that the install program thinks that there is already an operating system installed on the HDD!

If I read everything right at the LifeGuard site (HERE) then simply installing their software and running it correctly will allow you to create the primary, extended and logical drive partitions as well as formatting them all and thus rendering the drive ready for use. At least that's sure what seemed to happen.

Wa'al, mebbe so and mebbe no.... I may have mucked something up but when I stick the WIN98 boot disk in and select "install WIN98 from CD Rom ", the boot disk loads CD-ROM support and all that, but then goes to a bluish DOS screen which asks if I want to configure the hard drive as it is not presently configured for WIndows 98. ( ?? )

The options are do this or exit setup, so I select configure and it chortles and chuckles a second or two and then says that there is an error loading the program and WIN98 setup will now exit. Upon pressing the OK (like you have a choice?) it reverts to the DOS level screen (white on black) and says that it was unable to load command due to a memory allocation error.

( ? ? ? ? )

Now I'm all soggy and hard to lite again. Drat.

OK What did I do wrong here? There was no OS on the drive (other than whaever the WD LifeGuard put on there to recognize the drives and mayhap something from the BootDisk) and so I'm at a total loss as to what the heck is going on.

SO I stick in the boot disk, figuring that there is something on the primary partition (C:\) as what shouldn't be there and run FORMAT C:\.

Not a durn bit of difference.... did the same thing again. Same error (unable to load COMMAND) and that's as far as I got.


Peeved don't EVEN begin to express the emotion.


Comments? Suggestions? Laughter?

Be nice. I cry easily.


Vince the

 

This still belong in the Hardware forum I THINK .

And posting it here also may only cause confusion.

 

Here, There, Anywhere?

Immaterial. Solved the problem and started the 'Puter from an older boot disk with CD support, then navigated to the Drive letter for it, did a dos 'dir/w/p ", found setup.exe and bingo.... off to the races. It installed like a champ.

You can light me again.


Can't figure out yet why the problem was what it was, but now it ain't what it was, which means it is what it is, so...(hanh???)
Well, it's fixed, and that's all I care about.

Now to go get nuts installing PCI bridges and LAN cards and the like.

Anyway.... moderator can close this thread and use it for reference.


Vince