Format Terminated Message while reformatting

[sweet_insanity]

I have completely wiped my hard drive, deleted the partitions and created one new one, then in the A:\ prompt typed in format c: The formatting gets to about 85% or so if i'm lucky then i get the message "not ready format terminated" It fully formatted once into 98 SE then it started to check my computer and deleted and it froze, so the guy that built my computer told me to start over again, and now i'm deleted! I'm not sure if my hard drive is bad or what the hell is going on... I need help!

We are glad to help you solve this problem, but please curb the cursing. TechIMO a famliy oriented site.

Robert Richmond
Editor, TechIMO.com

More specs . . . less swearing.

What size HDD is it?

What bootdisk are you using?

[sweet_insanity]

I have no clue of what I'm doing, and I'm not computer smart FYI.

BUT.. its an 80 GB hard drive, i'm using the windows 98 SE bootdisk that i got off a website

Did you get it from Bootdisk.com?

If not, go and get the OEM Me one from here.

Boot w/ it and try 'FORMAT C:' again.

EDIT - YGPM as well.

[sweet_insanity]

I did boot it with a floppy from there... and i did format it with it ... and i'm still not getting anything to work

Did you try the OEM Me one?

Throw up some more system specs.

Mobo
CPU
RAM
etc . . .

[sweet_insanity]

I don't know the information.. its like... 512 RAM.. a friend built it.. anyways.. should that matter if i'm just reformatting it?

Not really, I was just making "small talk" while you were trying to format the drive again.

In all my days of 'FORMAT', I have never seen "not ready format terminated". I get the "Abort, Retry, Fail" crap, but that's it.

[sweet_insanity]

it terminated again.. idk what to do i guess.. maybe i'll just go buy a real version of the os.. or maybe a new hard drive.. I was looking online for anyone else on a mb that had the same message as i have gotten and there were about 50..