For a *quick* format, use a FreeDOS bootable CD or boot floppy with FORMAT.EXE on it.

Windows 98 SE install CD or boot floppy also works but the format is slower.

Great, Thanks, I'll give the FreeDOS bootable CD a try.

GParted Live

^^ I have made myself a automated W98SE installation CD using an answer file: http://youtu.be/4YgtLD43hOs

The CD is bootable with a W98SE custom bootdisk from bootdisk.com. I use it to fdisk and format the drive.

Alternatives are, FreeDOS (already mentioned) and Super Fdisk. That one has a GUI so it won't run on very old machines. FreeDOS is a bit confusing, you need to select install to hard drive option and then get a prompt for fdisk. I haven't used this method a lot but I have no doubts that it works well 😀

Another thing you can do work with disc images. I work on a lot of projects in my lab and a read-to-go disc image with MS-DOS, drivers, benchmarks and whatnot saves a ton of time. The size of the drive doesn't matter, it adjusts it as it needs to. I use an external USB hard drive docking station for quick imaging.

If you want to dig deeper, fdisk has hidden commands and even supports processing a script file. Together with other utilities that wipe all partitions you can build something that boots and auto-creates a partition. Lots of things you can do 😀

I often just use the 98\ME CD\Floppy, + a floppy with Freedos's FDISK\Format utility's copied on to it or I add them to a 98\ME floppy with them.

If I don't use that, I use bootable GParted linux distro, Or Puppy Linux which also has Gparted on it, but is even lighter with resource reqs, and will let you partition USB devices if you need to for some reason.

http://www.masterbooter.com/download/addition … ilities_en.html

Click on "bootable floppy" link. It has everything you want (CD_ROM and mouse drivers, FreeDOS FORMAT and SYS utilities, a nice and simple partitioning program, and of course a shareware but fully functioning multi boot software).