HDD Format, no boot from cd,1.44,or zip HELP!!!!

[romans10913]

All right, this is one of the oddest things I have ever seen. I had a w2k box with a 2gig partition. With the software that I use this partion is to small. I decided to install WXP PRO. When I did I war partially complete and I received a character map error. It said cannot install character map. I skipped this error did not really care about it. Well the computer froze at some point. Therefore I turned it off and restarted the installation. The next error I received said ASMS error. I checked all the threads and found one that said go to Microsoft’s website and find the solution there I did and I did what it said (

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;311755)

I used method 1. After I rebooted I started receiving other errors cannot find boot disk. I cannot boot from anything no mater what I change. One the errors were it was trying to boot from the lan. I disabled that and it cleared that error but the other, I am not sure how to get around it. I need your help and I am new to this forum. Thank you very much

 

[ceh4702]

May need a drive utility software for writing zeros or 1s to the front of or the entire drive so you can make new partitions and mark them as readable. XP and XT are bad about messing with the MASTER BOOT RECORD. Sometimes you have to destroy whatever they wrote to it.

If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.

 

[wolluf]

romans10913 - its a bit difficult diagnosing exactly what happened with your machine. It sounds like initial fault stopped the hard drive from booting, and probably the CD ROM drive went AWOL at the same time (may have been the cause of the whole problem). Then you were using a bad boot floppy.

I was suggesting disconnecting the hard drive as I thought machine wasn't booting at all - ie, no POST screen (bad drive can cause that) - so I wanted to be sure it would boot from CD or floppy without hard drive present. However, i think that was my misunderstanding - machine was booting but not finding operating system on hard drive (or install CD in CD ROM drive). So, wiping the hard drive and getting new CD drive have sorted you out. Suspect if you'd replaced CD drive immediately, you would have been able to install XP.

 

[romans10913]

Yeah, unfortunately you are probably right, about changing the CD-rom out first. I just did not think something like that would cause the cd-rom to die.

For future reference when I have a hhd problem I will boot w/o it connected as a diagnostic.

Thank you for all of your help. My Box is now running great and I might be able to salvage my job for a little while longer.