How to Format A Hard Drive?

[DeltaT]

I picked up an old laptop Compaq that is suppose to have Windows 95 so I can run an old control program I have but all I get is the Compaq screen. Compaq says the memory is jogged out of place so I check. The memory card is missing so I get a new one but the computer still does the same.

So I try reloading Windows 95 with no success then I try Windows 98 with no success cept the blue screen says there is already an OS on the hard disk so I can't install another one. Or I must upgrade, whatever.

So I read that a lot of you guys format your hard drives once a year or so to remove all the junk and viruse so I'm thinking I should just wipe this one out and install Win95 with my install disk.

But, is this an easy thing to do in less than 25 words? How do I go about doing it? And how do I find out what OS system is already on this computer keeping in mind it doesn't boot up to the OS? I sure can't tell by looking at the directory of files on the hard drive.

Any help would be appreciated specially if it's something I can do easily without getting Bill Gates involved.

[Mr Bill]

Be real careful formating a Compaq some of the bios has been known to be on the hard drives on some of the older Compaq machines, and if you erase the bios or even part of it your in deep do do, call Compaq and ask them they are pretty friendly folks and they also are about two miles from my house.

[smokin68]

I did it on my old 'puters. Remember you have to have a copy of the O/S you want to install. There is a sequence of commands you have to type in in BIOS. You should contact the manufacturor of your 'puter to seek these,or they might be online. good luck.

[yocona]

You could try asking Compaq for help. On their homepage, there is a selection to Email a Support Specialist. I clicked on the link and there is no mention of it costing money, so it is worth a shot.
http://h20180.www2.hp.com/apps/Nav?h...&h_product=top

[Dad]

DT... I hope you heard what billpro had to say...


It's true. Compaq has all of the component drivers on the hard drive. If you format it your toast without the recovery disk's. The computer will not run.

Compaq, now HP, has had plenty of law suits that have forced them to make the recovery disk's available to you at no charge. Just ask them for help like Yocona said.

[rsmith46]

To format the hard drive you need a floppy windows start-up disk. After you get a dos promt simply type format c:\ and hit enter.
Its not the bios you have to worry about, its all the proprietary Compaq hardware drivers you need.

Do like Lusker said, Compaq will send you a recovery cd that will restore the computer to its original state with all the drivers and hardware.

[wally01]

I like to use a 3 pound hand maul to format my hard drive's.











Stupid computers!!!!!

[Mr Bill]

Originally posted by rsmith46
Its not the bios you have to worry about

RS, guess you have not had much experience with Compaq's "many of my friends work for them" and I have built many Compaq machines in the past,I will say this again on some of the "older" Compaq units there is some of the "BIOS" information on the hard drive and not on a seperate chipset like most IBM clones, you erase this "BIOS" info. and you will be in deep do do unless you have "all" the recovery disks.

[Dad]

Originally posted by mrbillpro

Originally posted by rsmith46
Its not the bios you have to worry about

RS, guess you have not had much experience with Compaq's "many of my friends work for them" and I have built many Compaq machines in the past,I will say this again on some of the "older" Compaq units there is some of the "BIOS" information on the hard drive and not on a seperate chipset like most IBM clones, you erase this "BIOS" info. and you will be in deep do do unless you have "all" the recovery disks.

'That's the reason when you format a Compaq hard drive, the hard drive doesn't work anymore... no bios to read to let the motherboard know it's there.


Ok.. well we have beaten this horse to hell and back..

[DeltaT]

Thanks for all the reply's guys. Very good advice and I will work with HP (Compaq). I did originally get on their site and talk with a rep who helped out greatly. That's how I found out about the memory thing not working.

I have a bunch of customers with Parker Gen II and finally decided to get the program to tap into these things as I have one customer who has a locked up system.

So my Carrier rep says I need a win95 OS system to operated the program -- looks like my Windows XP might also operate the program!

Anyway, I picked up this cute little laptop thinking this would be easy....going on 5 weeks now of trying to get the thing to run!

I'll get the restore CD and give it a go....but I am really, really tempted to see how this computer would sound under the front tire of my service van.

Seems nothing, absolutely nothing that has to do with computers, software, accessories, devices are easy, straight forward, logical, intelligent and productive! Someone somewhere is always going to tell me I need to buy some adaptor, readdress a file, reinsert the gizmo for the 20th time, update, upgrade, deinstall to reinstall, search for and find a certain file to reinstall a different file, use some sort of slash, dash or comma or period, well, you get the picture.

Even with the change in this site, now I no longer get the response notification that I use to get and, in my mind, there is absolutely no reason for that. But some tech head, insult intended - if they are a true tech head totally in charge of making their customers miserable, will give me a 32 step instruction form telling me how I must, now, readdress my comfiguration file to "allow" them to communicate with my blessed server data delivery file configuration option 3rd series of generation X procedure file upgrade 3.4, which must be preceeded by installation of 3.3 first, which, by the way, is no longer supported or to be found anywhere in the world, but must be installed and then a download of above items to only receive that at the last minute the download was not successful because an Active X file was not found --- so there. Period. End of operation.---- 3.5 hours gone by and not a darn thing was accomplished except I was told an Active X file was not found. So what is Active X?

Yep, so I get to go search on that to receive a brief 43 step procedure to download that Active X file, but it must only download to XP SP3, which, of course, I am trying to do this to download a Win95 file in the first place so I have to use another computer with Win XP to download the file intended to go on my Win95 program.

AND, in the process of downloading whatever friggin file I am now downloading .... see, by this time I can't even remember why I am doing any of this .... I get an error message that the old file will not work on my newer computer OS system but that is OK cause I'm going to transfer it on my older computer anyway until I attempt to copy the file to my older computer then I get an error message about one of the file is "cylindrical copying" and stuck in a cycle...so it won't copy to another floppy so I can download it on to the computer I need it on!

True story, sad to say.

OK, I got to go do something productive - not dealing with computers, I hope.

Thanks again.

[yocona]

Originally posted by DeltaT

Seems nothing, absolutely nothing that has to do with computers, software, accessories, devices are easy, straight forward, logical, intelligent and productive! [/B]

Unfortunately, that is how I feel about refrigeration and HVAC issues. Then again, maybe that is just because I can't seem to get any professional service in this town anymore.
lol

[mtnwrench]

I cant get into any Gen II systems with my current laptop, xp. Have to keep around an old slow piece of junk with win95 on it to get into them. I dont even bother with the laptop much anymore. You can see everything from the main stat and bypass controller. Good luck on that laptop.

[DeltaT]

Originally posted by yocona

Originally posted by DeltaT

Seems nothing, absolutely nothing that has to do with computers, software, accessories, devices are easy, straight forward, logical, intelligent and productive!

Unfortunately, that is how I feel about refrigeration and HVAC issues. Then again, maybe that is just because I can't seem to get any professional service in this town anymore.
lol [/B]

AND I am just gonna bet ya that alot has to do with technical stuff having to do with programmable thermostats and the solid state devices in these systems (aka: computers).

We have forgotten to concentrate on and build our collective brains on fundemantals and have places most of our gray matter on self serving, self regulating and self diagonistic computer type stuff in our industry.

And your problem is not only in your town but most everywhere from my experience. If you send kids to school to get their minds full of data but their hands full of nothing, what can any of us expect?

Skilled trads, like ours, means someone has to use the dicipline of the mind AND body to make things work. Analytical thinking is a lost art cause we are becomming more lazy as we depend on that wonderful set of words "modern technology."

We didn't get this way, this country, by accident. We designed ourselves into this mess.

[DeltaT]

Originally posted by mtnwrench
I cant get into any Gen II systems with my current laptop, xp. Have to keep around an old slow piece of junk with win95 on it to get into them. I dont even bother with the laptop much anymore. You can see everything from the main stat and bypass controller. Good luck on that laptop.

One of the office building I have been asked to do some work in has two complete sets of Gen II. One I have already rebuilt cause the tenants upstairs let their water heater leak until it burst which poured water into the unit downstair right on top of the slave stat and damper modules!

But the West unit will not respond to any changes in setting so the tenants have been held captive for years. The only response I can give the owner is someone locked out the programming which can only be done using a computer, to my knowledge. So for 3 months now I have been attempting to gain access to this system to see what is up.

But I'll just bet, and hope not, that someone along the line put in a password! The owner totally understands what is going on and has commented he has had these types of unnecessary and expensive problems before.

[The Penguin]

ah ha are we talking about carrier? sheet ah I forgot its been so long master monitor slave bypass etc?


I'm wondering if you could load a 98 upgrade disc over top with out having to dick around with win 95 (you would need an original win 95 disc to complete this I believe
I am not sure if win 98 would run the carrier program though

[DeltaT]

Originally posted by The Penguin
ah ha are we talking about carrier? sheet ah I forgot its been so long master monitor slave bypass etc?


I'm wondering if you could load a 98 upgrade disc over top with out having to dick around with win 95 (you would need an original win 95 disc to complete this I believe
I am not sure if win 98 would run the carrier program though

My Carrier Factory Contact says Window 98 is too unstable and Win 95 is the program to use.

I'm sittin here on a friday night with my right hand on the mouse looking at this site and my left hand pushing the enter key on this Compaq cause Scandisk says I have a ton of broken, corrupted, etc directoris so it's suppose to fix it.

I think whoever owned this computer did things they wern't suppose too. Funny thing is I have installed Windows 98 twice and it tell me so but when I reboot sometimes I get Windows 95. So someone must have installed two OS systems.

Stupid thing about me is I already have two old laptops with Windows 95 on them. But you know what you gotta do when something doesn't work. Yep, you got to fix it.

this thing still may see the bottom of my front tire yet. But its' a clean little computer that, if I can get it running, I'll just give it to someone who can use it.