erasing disk 1400/ SCSI disk mode

[K a r i]

I was given a PB1400 and it's questionable as to whether the hard drive 
is going out. It got filled up to less than 90MB of free space and just 
 started mis-behaving. He couldn't connect online anymore, serial port 
wouldn't work, and I don't know what else. I rescued his important files 
and then he gave it to me to keep.  The floppy drive wasn't included, he 
said it doesn't work. I'm not sure about the CDrom drive. But the SCSI 
disk mode does work and it's mounted on my starmax right now. I wanted 
to erase the whole disk and install 8.1 from the CD using the SCSI disk 
mode. But just before I clicked ERASE, I got to thinking, how will SCSI 
disk mode work if there's nothing on the hard drive....?

Can I erase the hard drive and then install system 8.1 without booting 
from the CD (using the SCSI DM)?

Is it worth upgrading this thing? It's the 117, it's only got 16MB RAM, 
and a 1G hard drive. It has a megahertz cruisecard, and that's all I 
know of for extras.
thanks, I'm PB clueless, but sure like that screen!
Kari

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