gfbrown Posted May 4, 2004 Share Posted May 4, 2004 "How to format a network drive" My son has a couple HP Computers recently taken out of service by his employer and replaced with newer equipment. Supposedly everything has been wiped off the hard drive by the company IT Administrator.I am doing a FDISK and Format and attempting to install Windows 98 full version. I got to the point where the W98 Operating System began to load but then a message appeared saying setup cannot find enough disk space. Free some disk space and run setup again. It needs 205 MB to install W98. Computer has at least 4GB on the hard drive. I got a message that it "Cannot format network drive" and I have not found a procedure to work around that problem. Hope someone has a straight forward method to overcome this roadblock. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed_P Posted May 4, 2004 Share Posted May 4, 2004 How much space did FDISK show the hard drive had? And how many partitions? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zlim Posted May 11, 2004 Share Posted May 11, 2004 Is the delpart I want a 62kb run from DOS program? I ask because apparently there is a trojan with the same name http://www.f-secure.com/v-descs/delpart.shtml (not real sure about the trojan because it seems to do what you want the utility to do - wipe everything). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed_P Posted May 11, 2004 Share Posted May 11, 2004 zlim, the one referenced here is an EXE file. According to MS KB 103049: Use the Delpart tool (Delpart.exe) to delete the NTFS partition. The Delpart tool is included with the Microsoft Windows NT 3.1 Resource Kit only. It is not included in the Windows NT 3.5, 3.51 or 4.0 Resource Kits. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
b2cm Posted May 11, 2004 Share Posted May 11, 2004 In FDISK make sure that the primary partition you created is active and visible, and formatted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
b2cm Posted May 12, 2004 Share Posted May 12, 2004 Jfbrown, just in case you return to this thread:You get that error message because win98 setup did not find an active, primary partition formatted to FAT32 to install to. (Because Setup couldn't find such a partition locally, it thinks you're trying to install on a network drive.) Obviously your partition/formatting work failed. And you may need to do it all over again.Using FDISK, delete all partitions. restart and using FDISK create a primary partition. Restart, and using FORMAT, format the primary partition. Use FDISK to check if this partition is Active, and if not use FDISK to set it active. Restart and run Win98 setup. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed_P Posted May 12, 2004 Share Posted May 12, 2004 You get that error message because win98 setup did not find an active, primary partition formatted to FAT32 to install to. Interesting. Course a msg that said Unable to find Active Primary partition would have been more logical. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
b2cm Posted May 13, 2004 Share Posted May 13, 2004 Course a msg that said Unable to find Active Primary partition would have been more logical.Yes, Ed. The usual error message in this case is something like "cannot create a temp directory ... if you have HPFS or NTFS installed on your hard drive you will need to create an MS-Dos boot partition to set up windows ...." If you try to format the drive, then you get that "cannot format a network drive" message. And so on and forth. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed_P Posted May 13, 2004 Share Posted May 13, 2004 So you're saying that if the drive has been formatted with XP's Format utility into a NTFS format then Win98's format will give the "cannot format a network drive" message. Yes?Will Win98's FDISK correct the problem? Or will DELPART be required? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
b2cm Posted May 13, 2004 Share Posted May 13, 2004 Yes, because DOS can't mount/see NTFS partition, and (Win9x) FORMAT works in/on DOS partitions. (At least, that's what I think---tell me if I'm wrong.)Actually, I don't use FDISK that much (instead I use PM or GDISK. But you can use FDISK to delete any existing DOS/non-DOS partition problemmatic to Windows setup. I've never used DELPART but from what I've read in this thread it looks like it's a more convenient (maybe even more effective) tool to clear the disk of partitions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed_P Posted May 13, 2004 Share Posted May 13, 2004 Thanks b2cm. (Win9x) FORMAT works in/on DOS partitions. (At least, that's what I think---tell me if I'm wrong.)Yup, that's how it works. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gfbrown Posted May 15, 2004 Author Share Posted May 15, 2004 Thanks for the information. Delpart did the job! The NTFS partition is gone and Win 98 SE is installed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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