Help! Did something stupid Reformatting.

[Eich]

Okay - I'll run though exactly what I did.

My C:\ was getting bogged down so I tried reformatting it on my own. First time. I backed up my files and then immediately followed by deleting everything on C:\ - that was probably a stupid move.


Then I tired to Install with the CD. Of course that didn't work
So I made a boot disk from the other computer and used that.

But as soon as the process "begins", I get this long message:

THE FOLLOWING FILE IS MISSING OR CORRUPTED: HIMEM.SYS
THERE IS AN ERROR IN YOUR CONFIG.SYS FILE ON LINE 21

MICROSOFT RAMDRIVE VER 3.06 VIRTUAL DISK D:
RAM DRIVE: EXTENDED MEMORY NOT PRESENT

WARNING: THE HIGH MEMORY AREA (HMA) IS NOT AVALIABLE
ADDITIONAL LOW MEMORY (BELOW 640K) WILL BE USED INSTEAD

THE FOLLOWING FILE IS MISSING OR CORRUPTED: COMMAND.COM
TYPE THE NAME OF THE COMMAND INTERPRETER (eg. C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND.COM)

I have absolutely no idea what to do at this point. Any help would be recieved with soo much gratitude.

 

[Gregr]

sounds like u tried to delete windows while still in windows :shame:

what operating system are you using 98 se, 2000, ME, XP

 

[Epgs]

You go through an click delete on all the file in my computer? Did you enter dos environment outside of your windows box and type format c:/ ? What steps did you take to reformat?

 

[Eindiaweb]

Okey. So you have deleted all your root files while in windows. Where have you backed up your files i guess from the error that you have backedup all files outside your hard disk as it dont have any more partition except c: , still if outside your harddisk then go for fdisk if not you can format your c drive with the command ~~~~> format c: /q /u /s this command will format your c drive and will load DOS system files on it.

Help on fdisk comand can be found here http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q255867

 

[Eich]

Gregr, I was using Win98 SE. And yeah. :S Oops. I repent greatly.

Epgs, I restarted. Held Ctrl. Selected Command Prompt Only. Typed c:\ "format c" - I saw it in a 'Help' File. :S

Eindiaweb - Yeah, there's no more partitions except c: And fdisk? That's complete foreign territory. Hmmm. I'll go study it and if it's too confusing I'll come back for help. (i guess?)


Do you think the problem might be with the boot disk or install cd?

 

[Eindiaweb]

Do you think the problem might be with the boot disk or install cd?

Yes it could be possible that your boot disk is incomplete or missing files try making new boot disk. Or it happens when boot disk you are using is looking files in your root. I have seen this happening when someone uses bootable installation cd.
Simple system boot disk (Floppy) can be made on windows 98 command prompt with command ~~~> sys a:
Copy manually some needed files like format & fdisk.

 

[Robert]

Download bootdisk at bootdisk.com, that should fix that.