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I have a Dell Latitude CPi laptop and it used to have Windows2000. Recently I had it fdisk and now it is unable to format? It always gives out “bad command or file name”.
Using Win98 cdrom bootdisk. Can Anyone help?I don’t think that it has bad sector? Could it be virus?

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Formatting

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Hi,
I’m probably wrong, as this seems a bit obvious – but if you are getting this message every time you type ‘format’ then are you sure that format.exe is in the path – IE do a dir and check that you can see it….

Formatting

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Win2000 uses the ntfs format and just formating or repartitioning will not remove the ntfs. Try fdisk and remove non dos partition or down load delpart from microsoft. M.S. keeps sticking their foot in it’s mouth.:)

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No it’s not a bad sector or virus, it means that the file format.com is not located on your bootdisk’s root directory. From the DOS prompt type:

dir /s format.com

then press enter. This command will search all directories on your disk for the executable file. If it is not present you can copy it from another computer running the same W98 operating system. Are you using the original W98 CD to boot your machine? or did you create a bootable CDROM using Easy CD Creator? If the latter you mayneed to change to your CD drive and search for the file there. When you find it type a PATH statement telling the OS where the file can be found.

Hope this helps

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The reason is because you don’t have the format.com file on your cd-rom.

Ask a friend for a boot disk created with windows 98 and it will have the file.

Good luck,

@lberto

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Hi..remember that win2k uses NTFS,therefore just trying to format will not work,do not use the win98 boot cd,try to get ur hands on a win98 boot disk,if u cant then will try to email u one,boot of the disk,get into fdisk and delete the NON DOS partition(NTFS),create your new partition ,make active,reboot n then use Bootdisk and format the driver,reboot n run your win98 CD.
Regards
Venishan Naidu

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PS. forgot to ask u whether or not the pc came with recovery disk,cos if u r gonna use a just a normal win98 cd then u r gonna hev huge problems cos the new dells come with 2 cd’s, one with 98 and then the utility/driver cd, make sure that u can getur hands on it as u find it xtremely hard to the req drivers..luck in advance

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Check that the file format.com exists on the floppy disk your using. This file doesn’t exist on the Windows98 boot disk by default. Copy the file from an existing machine or from the Windows98 CD ROM.

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