Bizarre behavior from fdisk \ VOGONS

Bizarre behavior from fdisk

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First post, by EvieSigma

Posted on 2020-01-16, 02:38

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I decided to reinstall Windows 98SE on my computer that I had swapped the motherboard in, using that Unattended Boot CD with all the drivers on it. But I've ran into a bizarre issue. When I run fdisk it creates a partition without even giving me the option to name it, and when I reboot the computer the volume name is gibberish and the setup fails with an error when it tries to format it:

What could possibly be causing this? I'm using the same boot floppy I've used for a long time now and I never had any previous issues with this hard drive (it's a Western Digital 40GB drive from the early 2000s).

Reply 1 of 5, by Horun

Posted on 2020-01-16, 03:33

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My guess is that "Unattended Boot CD with all the drivers on it". The boot floppy is just to get the CDROM active, the actual not retail/not OEM Windows CD media is what cause it.

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. Stuff: https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 2 of 5, by EvieSigma

Posted on 2020-01-16, 04:22

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Horun wrote on 2020-01-16, 03:33:

My guess is that "Unattended Boot CD with all the drivers on it". The boot floppy is just to get the CDROM active, the actual not retail/not OEM Windows CD media is what cause it.

You know what, that would be the most logical explanation wouldn't it? I'll try reinstalling with a normal 98SE disk tomorrow then.

Reply 3 of 5, by canthearu

Posted on 2020-01-16, 04:24

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If that doesn't work, reset everything again by using DBAN to zero out the hard disk.

The old partition and MBR information may still be partially intact, confusing fdisk.

Reply 4 of 5, by SirNickity

Posted on 2020-01-16, 19:09

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Partitions don't have names. File systems do. 😀 So what might be happening here is whatever is on the disk looks just enough like FAT for fdisk to think it's a formatted partition. If you boot from a floppy or CD or whatever, then "format c: /v:NewName", you'll have a volume label that does not contain upper ASCII.

Reply 5 of 5, by EvieSigma

Posted on 2020-01-16, 20:17

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Okay, so when I did the install with a normal 98SE CD instead everything was fine. I guess that was the issue then.

That driver CD works inside Windows too so I should still be able to get the motherboard and graphics card drivers off it after Windows finishes installing.

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