You can try FDISK / MBR

Whats that do and how do i do it? My guess is it makes it an MBR partition.

It just rewrites the Master Boot record. Just a shot in the dark 😀

You can run it by booting off your win98 disk, and running it from the command line.

It doesn't create a partition as such, merely the boot sector. The wikipedia article has more in-depth information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_boot_record

Did you doublecheck that the Primary partition is marked as Active in FDisk?

Also, is this 120GB new to this machine? Does it recognise the drive properly?

yeah it sees all 111gb just like my quad core win 7 machine does. what are the parameters to run fdisk /mbr and check the part is active? i tried doing this on g parted earlier today but, gparted brain farts on the machine even in safe mode it always ask me for user and password. I'm gonna try part logic right now.

EDIT:
it started with A: so...
A:FDISK /MBR
blinking "_"
A:C:
C:
C: FDISK /MBR
blinking "_"
C:D:
D:
D: FDISK /MBR
blinking "_"
D:setup
press enter to continue....

EDIT: and same thing, i think there is more to it than FDISK /MBR
I think if i could get stupid gparted to run i could setup an MBR.

Check if the BIOS has an option for Virus Boot sector protection?

If you just enter:

FORMAT C: /S

Can you then boot from the HDD?

Apart from that I would just run FDISK and delete all partitions and start again. Unless you already did that...

When you run FDISK /MBR nothing happens on screen, but it is doing something in the background.

Did you recently copy all files to this disk from another disk? You could try booting from a Win98se startup disk and running C:\Windows\Command\Sys A: C:, that will properly transfer the system files to the C: drive so it can boot.

you mean the boot files?

cdoublejj wrote:

what are the parameters to run fdisk /mbr and check the part is active?

I've never heard of Part Logic before, but if it's worth anything, it ought to be able to tell you if the partition is marked as Active. It's been so long since I've used vanilla FDisk that I can't recall where it would have that information.

How exactly are you trying to run GParted?

cdoublejj wrote:

you mean the boot files?

Yeah, the boot files. The Sys.exe command is located under C:\Windows\Command on Win9x. "Sys A: C:" will copy the boot files from the floppy to the hard drive. The system won't boot if the files are simply copied, they have to be installed using the 'format c: /s' or 'sys a: c:' command. Although that might not be the whole issue here...

Re-reading this thread, I dunno if the Active partition status was assessed. This is usually enabled by default when the drive is first partitioned, however if the volumes original use was a portable hard drive, the A attribute may never have been set, and the system won't boot without it. FDISK /MBR will repair the Master Boot record and will fix issues regarding any leftover Linux software in the MBR, but won't activate a partition.

You should be able to run FDISK (without switches) from a Win9x startup floppy, and view the partition table using option 4 (View partition information). The drives first primary partition should have an "A" listed in it. If it's not there, the partition's not active, and won't boot to it. The partition can be activated with Option 2 (Set active partition) and set the partition with Win98se installed to active.

Strange uncommon issue really, but that's what I can think of when you can't boot to a FAT partition, the MBR is screwed, boot files aren't properly installed, or the boot partition's not active. Hope that helps.

do i need to wipe the hard drive and copy/install the boot files and reinstall windows or just do it as is and continue installation if it indeed does work and boots off the drive?

you know FDISK can only see like 400mb of the entire drive right it's like way outdated. i think for shits and giggles i'm going to make it a format 98 doesn't understand and let setup format (will see raw drive/foreign file system) it but, i'm sure it will come out all wrong knowing 98s not so great large hdd support out of box.

Using the SYS command, no formatting is needed to properly transfer system files.
Hmm, sounds like an older version of FDISK or something... you might still be able to check and set the Active bit using the old FDISK though.

I'd be worried about using the Win98 Setup to format the drive if all the Win98 FDISK can recognise the drive as is 400mb, might not work right. Another idea is to take the drive out and connect it to (by USB or internally) an XP/Vista/7 box and check the Disk Management utility under Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Computer Management. In there you can view all drive volumes, view/delete/resize Primary and Extended partitons, format them to FAT16/32 or NTFS, and mark them as Active. Us it to delete all partions on the drive, create a partition, mark it active and format using FAT32. Might be a good workaround.

Figured it out.

By formatting the and partitioning the drive my self I indecently missed crucial steps in setup.
You see setup when formatting the drive makes it active and installs the proper boot files, HOW EVER when i format manually with my live boot CDs it sees that nice and neat partition and goes "oh i must have already setup the hard drive time for step 2"

Thing is the partition programs only partition they don't install the 98SE boot files. So i i erased all the partitions and wrote the changes. I let 98se format the drive to my surprise it didn't come out with some weird size with half the drive showing up. It properly formatted with FAT32 LBA and fully installed TWICE (borked a driver install).

when i run my driver installers from Toshiba it ask for extra files upon reboot on some drivers and it sucks cause i have to track down all the files and burn them off to a disk.