windows fails to start after new harde drive install

[thedouger1999]

dear paul master puter tech    this thread hasnt fixed my problem    getting ready to go buy a new os   but would rather not      any ideas why this fails      thx

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

If Cheryl G doesn't have an answer for you, no one will. 

She's forgotten more than I will ever learn.

However, there is one thing you can try, but that requires some old time knowledge and some old time equipment.

Namely, a Windows 98 boot disk, some basic knowledge of DOS commands, like how to run FDISK (delete and create partitions) and FORMAT (if you have a lot of time to wait), and a USB floppy drive, if your PC doesn't have a FDD.

Using this "stone knives and bearskins" method has saved my bacon a time or two.

You can download and make the Win 98 boot disk at the link below. All you need is to put a Floppy disk in your USB floppy drive, double click on the executable and it will create the disk for you automatically.

http://bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

I don't remember if you need to run this on an XP computer or not, since I haven't done this in a while.

Boot the PC from the FDD and it will bring you to an A:\ prompt.

Type in the command FDISK.

Then delete the partitions you don't want.

In order to delete partitions, you have to first delete any non-DOS partitions.

Then you can delete the DOS partitons.

If you don't need any of them, delete them all. First non-DOS then DOS until you have a raw disk.

Then create a partition.  Press Y to enable large disk support.

Then once that is done, you need to restart the PC.

Try loading windows now. If it doesn't load you can try to format the partition but it will take forever with a 1 TB HDD.

I think that if you can't install Windows after you create a partition using this method, then it probably won't matter if you formatted it anyway.

Other than that, I have no other ideas you can try.

Paul

[thedouger1999]

thx a lot ill give it  a shot

[thedouger1999]

thx 4 your help. after many tries i gave up and bought a copy of windows 7  fixed all problems   . I think ill try a Dell next time.  horrible customer support and half ass products   also had 3 hp printers in last year 2 died the third ran out of ink in 1 week.  good luck  and thx again