Drive not ready Insert BOOT diskette in A: 1

[joker19745]

My parents Windows 98 SE will not load windows. I get a dos prompt that says Drive not ready Insert BOOT diskette in A: Press any key when ready. They don't have a boot or startup disk. I tried downloading one from the internet from

http://techtips4u.com/downloads/#Win_98se

but when I try to use scanreg.exe /restore the prompt shows invalid directory. Any help would be greatly appreciated as I am stuck at my parents house until i can get them back on-line,
Thanks

 

[TopHat2]

First thing I would do is to verify that the "C:\WINDOWS" directory exists, after booting from the floppy, at the DOS prompt enter;

C:
cd \windows

If you get a message saying "Invalid directory" or any other error, then its time to start thinking about reinstalling Windows. This assumes that Windows was installed on drive C: and not somewhere else, and that the directory it was installed to was "\WINDOWS", neither are necessarily true, but these are the default locations, so it's a pretty good bet.

 

[joker19745]

I was hoping there was a way to salvage tonight, but I guess I'll spend it reinstalling their o/s, thanks

 

[TopHat2]

If your getting the message "Drive not ready Insert BOOT diskette in A: Press any key when ready.", then I am sorry to say there is a good chance that important files no longer exist on your HDD, or that the HDD its self has failed.

Check that the IDE and power cables are properly connected to the HDD and that the IDE cable is pluged securly into the motherboard, there is just a chance that somthing has worked loose.

 

[MyTwoGirlsDad]

Have you checked for a boot sector virus?

Just a thought!