At 20:02 1/15/99 -0800, Doug wrote:
>I have a machine that has been running WIN98 with FAT32 compression.  I
>have had nothing but problems with 98 so I wiped the hard drive clean and
>am in the process of trying to put WIN95 on.
>However the FAT32 format seems to have survived the re-format and WIN95
>won't load. Is there any way of undoing this FAT32?


Hi Doug

Generally you should use the operating system that creates a special type of
partition to get rid of a partition of that type. You would use WinNT to get
rid of an NTFS partition, a Unix to get rid of a Unix partition, and Win98 to
get rid of a FAT32 partition. A program like Partition Magic is also good at
this kind of thing.

What you want to do is boot from a Win98 repair disk (what used to be called
a startup disk in 95) and run FDISK. That will let you delete the FAT32
partitions.

If you don't have a repair disk, you could reload Win98 to the point where it
asks you to make one of these diskettes. Then halt the Win98 installation
and use the diskette to run FDISK.

There is a DEBUG routine that will delete most kinds of partitions. The debug
routine (below) will completely overwrite track zero of your disk and wipe
out all partitions. (DEBUG is a DOS command.)

You will need a bootable DOS diskette (95 or 98 Startup Disk or MS-DOS
diskette) with debug.exe on it. Please print this message first.

Be sure to mind your spaces and capital letters:

debug<Enter>
-F 200 L200 0<Enter>
-a 100<Enter>
-mov ax,301<Enter>
-mov bx,200<Enter>
-mov cx,1<Enter>
-mov dx,0080<Enter> (change last 0 to 1 for drive D:, 2 for drive E:)
-int 13<Enter>
-int 3<Enter>
-<Enter>
-G=100<Enter>

** Notes:
   1)  The letters in the first and last lines **must** be capitalized
       letters, the rest should **not** be.
   2)  In the line with the number 0080, change the last 0 to a 1 for
       drive D:, as in 0081, and to a 2 for drive E:, etc.
   3)  After the first couple of lines are typed and entered, you will see
       numbers and memory addresses on the screen, don't worry, they are
       supposed to show up.  The <Enter> on the line by itself after the
       "int 3" line clears them (everything) back to the dash prompt so
       you can type the last "go" command. (G=100)
   4)  Do not run from a DOS Window out of Win95.
   5)  Type debug at the DOS prompt when you are booted in DOS.
   6)  The - at the start of each line is the Debug prompt. You
       don't have to type it.

Here's another idea since you don't like Win98. Have you considered 98lite?
It's an application developed by a Biology Professor at the University
of Maryland that breaks the tight integration between Windows98 and Internet
Explorer, opening up a range of new possibilities for configuring Windows98.
These posibilities are realised by implanting the leaner and faster Explorer
shell from Windows95 onto the improved core of Windows98. You keep all the
Windows98 improvements to the hardware support, drivers, memory management,
Fat32 and improved networking, but the Explorer95 interface is considerably
faster and consumes less computer resources.

98lite currenly consists of two products that are available as free
downloads. 98lite is a custom installer, that allows you to install Win98
for the first time, without the Internet Explorer browser and desktop
integration. IE-Remove is a script that implants the Windows95 Explorer
Shell, and deletes Internet Explorer from the hard disk and system registry
of a system that has already got Windows98 installed on it.

You can find more information and download what's needed to install 98lite
from <http://www.98lite.net/>. It sounds like now would be the perfect time
for you to try this!

Regards,
Bill

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