Hard Drive won't load Windows 98ME?

[wulf109]

40GB Maxtor HD crashed running Win98ME. At first it would lockup when I tried to access the FD. My CDR recorder wouldn't read disks and would terminate burns. I tried to re-format the HD but Fdisk said that the boot sector was bad and was un-useable!
I slaved the drive in another computer so I could format it under windows.
windows took a very long time to load but finally loaded and I opened explorer and was able to format the HD
It will accept Windows98,first edition,but if I try to olad Win98ME the install hangs. The drive has some bad sectors,located at the beginning,could this be the cause,does Win98ME require space at the begining of the HD?
It seems to run Win98 fine,just won;t allow me to load Win98ME.

[redwudz]

Just about all drives have a few bad sectors. The format/partition operation isolates them and you would never notice unless there is a excess amount. Usually if you go the boot disk route and fdisk and format, they shouldn't be a problem. You may have a drive going bad. The part about the boot sector being bad is a problem. I managed to damage the boot sector on one of my drives and the advice was to low level format it. Never could find a way to do that, so I got rid of it. If you are lucky it's still under warranty, if not, probably replace.

[Craig Tucker]

I would say that the fact your drive wont allow WinME to install is a good thing

[808smokey]

Windows ME sux. Just use 98. Microsoft doesn't even support it anymore :P . If you really want it to work use FDISK to format it. It['s on your Win98 Start up disk

[gmatov]

Unless you need the last bit of performance from your machine, why don't you enable S.M.A.R.T. in the BIOS?

It willtell you on boot up if the drives are in good shape.

I have had 1 drive returned and replaced because Smart said it was failing, backup and replace.

If you fdisk and format, I don't understand what the bad boot sector has to do with it. You are wiping it completely. There will be no boot sector left after a format.

Try againif you haven't got 98 set up the way you want it. ie you still have time to make changes.

[stiltman]

what I would do.
boot with a ME or 98 boot disk
fdisk /mbr
fdisk to setup the partitions
fdisk to set the partition as active
load ME

[snafu099]

bad/corrupted boot sector
from dos fdisk /mbr