I have a serious Problem, please help me.

[Juniare]

Okay recentlly my computer has been seriouslly acting up. It freezes up when I boot up my computer, or a couple of minutes after I boot it up. My CD-RW drive will not open .exe files. And I've recentlly deleted my whole hard drive. Now my computer won't read the start up disk drives for my CD-RW drive and now I can't reinstall Windows 98 with my Windows 98 CD-Rom.


So what can I do?

 

[wolluf]

Have you only the CD-RW drive (ie, no CD/DVD ROM)?

can't boot machine from win98 install CD?

Can you boot from win98 boot floppy (

http://www.bootdisk.com

if you haven't one) with CD support & access disk?

Is the CD-RW kaput? If you can't access CDs in it and haven't another CD/DVD drive, get one.

More clues if this no use, please.

 

[dermoyn]

Your msg is rather unclear -

"It freezes up when I boot up my computer, or a couple of minutes after I boot it up."

But further down you say you've "recently deleted...[your]whole hard drive". Can you boot with a boot floppy? Does it still freeze?

"My CD-RW drive will not open .exe files."

I presume since you say that since "I've recently deleted my whole hard drive" that you are talking about trying to do this via a DOS boot disk? Yes? No? Is the EXE you are trying to access the setup.exe from the Win98 CD?

"Now my computer won't read the start up disk drives for my CD-RW drive".

What's a "start up disk drive for..[your] CD-RW drive"? I've never heard of such a thing. Are you talking about a bootable floppy disk that contains CD support?

"and now I can't reinstall Windows 98 with my Windows 98 CD-Rom."

Presumably you were able to do this once before? So, as your hard drive is wiped it might be as simple a thing as not having CD support on your floppy disk? Though you say you can not open executable files. So, presumably you can access some files on your CD?

Okay. The first thing is to calm down. If you stayed calm you would have given a better description of your problem and maybe we could now be on the way to fixing it.

And by the way, your subject line is what indicates panic: "I have a serious Problem, please help me." A "serious problem" is when your kids are sick and hungry and you have no money to feed them and George Bush and Tony Blair are galloping to the rescue.

You could have a series of unrelated problems (highly unlikely) or 1 problem leading to other things. It's probably not a big deal. We get the CD drive sorted out and you reinstall Windows. But it depends a lot on whether or not the thing freezes on booting up with a floppy. If it does that complicates things somewhat. So try to boot with a bootable floppy disk that has CD support first. If the floppy doesn't have CD support try booting with it anyway and report back. The big question is does it still freeze? And if so, at what exact stage? Any error messages? When you say it freezes what exactly do you mean? What are you trying to do at that time that it won't let you do? Because you say it freezes but you also say it won't let you access executables on the CD-RW drive. Well, of course if it has frozen it won't let you acces the drive. Okay, I'm going round in circles.

Kind regards
Dermot

 

[mainegeek]

dermoyn,
Reading your Novel made me dizzy.

 

[Juniare]

Okay this is what I'm saying.

First my CD-RW Drive (Philip's CDRW1208 series) stopped opening .exe files from CD's. So I ignored it, and figure it will start working after a few moments. Weeks later my CD-RW drive still won't open .exe files, but then my compter froze up as soon as windows started up (gets to my desktop). Then it started doing it all the time, everytime I booted my computer up it froze. So I completely deleted my hard disk. And tried to reinstall Windows 98 (cause thats the OS I use). And in order to do that you have to use the Backup Windows floppy disk that you have to make when you install Windows 98. The floppy has backup drivers for your CD-Rom..I know it works for my CD-RW drive, because I've used the floppy's extract command to copy some files from the CD-Rom to my computer. But this time the computer won't even read from the CD-rom and this is the same problem I had when I had all my files on the hard drive (before deleting the hard drive). I can't install the CD-RW original files because I lost my CD-Rom, and Philips don't have an update drives just a stupid firmware program that didn't do a thing.

So what can I do?

 

[james33]

Dear Juniare,
Can you see the Bios detecting the Hard Drive and then the CD when you first boot up the computer without the floppy in, just before it comes up with "Invalid system disc".


Regards Jim
Check the FAQ area of this Forum for answers (If there are any FAQs!) , it could save you a lot of time and effort and means that links are more likely to be current. Please 'Comment' on them if they are not!

 

[dermoyn]

It's a little bit clearer though not much. Mind you it could be my glasses.

I'll ask this again:
Can you boot from a bootable floppy disk?
Does it crash?
Do you get an error message?
What is it?
At what stage does it crash?

If you can't do this with one boot floppy could you have a go with another boot floppy?
Just to be sure. You should have two boot floppies with CD support for every OS you have. And if you can post you can certainly download a boot floppy.

Can I take it you know about going into the BIOS and setting the boot order?
Having the floppy first?

You don't need drivers for a CD-RW in Windows. It's a firmware upgrade. Sounds like you tried it. Let's hope it hasn't done any further damage.

In DOS your W98 floppy should have the required drivers. The W98 boot disk gives very good CD support. And it sounds like it worked in the past.

If you can't access the W98 CD in DOS can you access any CD?
By "access" I'd like to know what happens when you type DIR when at the drive letter for your CD Rom drive.
And, by the way, what is your CD Rom drive letter?
Are you sure you are looking in the right place for your CD contents? Go through the alphabet - it's not very long. It's prob D: So start at that end.

If, as you say, you can't access your Win98 disk what is the error msg you get?

Is this the original CD or is it a copy? I ask this becuase I have a Plexwriter which has suddenly found the latest (and expensive) brand of Verbatim CDs not to its taste. And, consequently, just ignores them.

Okay, moving along, have you tried to boot from the CD? The w98 CD is bootable.
As I asked above, you know about going into the BIOS and setting the boot order? To boot from the CD set CD as first, second and third options. In other words force it. Sometimes, the thing will try half heartedly to boot from the CD and then give up and try to load from somewhere else. Make sure it does not have a somewhere else to go to.

Also, watch the screen when it boots up. Does the BIOS recognise the CD drive when you boot up? i.e. does it name the thing on the screen?

If it doesn't have a look in the BIOS. And maybe it's then time to get out the screwdriver.

Have another go at answering these questions. And go back over my earlier mail and answer the rest of the questions in it. And read Wolluf's again also. And answer his questions. His patience is probably greater than mine. So nurture him.

Dermot

 

[edfair]

The boot floppy that has CD support loads several drivers. And reports if it successfully loads them and assigns a drive letter. First confirm message should come from config.sys saying it has found a drive at portxxx. Second comes from autoexec.bat saying it has assigned a drive letter.
What does your machine tell you.

Sounds like you have lost the CD and rather than replace it have sharpened the knife to commit hari-kari.

Ed Fair
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[mainegeek]

I agree with Edfair. Sounds like your CDRom died. I have seen the same problem before. If you disconnect your CDRom
drive and set the cmos for it to NONE then you will probably be able to boot with out a lock up. Although you will need another one in order to install your OS.

 

[Juniare]

I know about the BIOS and I did arange it to boot from the floppy first, and the CD-Rom driver does install good, it makes the CD-ROm drive E:/, and I don't get any messages...it just freezes up when I type setup like the windows 98 instruction book tells me too, at the a:/ prompt, and the e:/ prompt...but nothing happens. either I just get nothing (just a line with what I just typed and the cursor will be under that blinking), or I get an unknown command message. I know the CD-Rom drivers loaded because when I open the help.txt file (typing "help" at the a:/ prompt)...I go into the open menu and the e:/ directory is there and when I choose it...I get the Windows 98 CD files.

(and if you're wondering how I'm posting these messages with my hard drive empty...I'm at the library)...Speaking of hard drives....when I deleted my hard drive and added it back...the bad clusters was still there, about 5 of them. If deleted the hard drive and made another one, but those bad clusters are still there...in another place, but they are still there.

SO NOW WHAT CAN I DO?

 

[edfair]

YOu probably have 2 problems. First , your CD isn't reading and probably needs to be replaced.
2nd, you need to reload the OS.
Until you do the 1St, you won't be able to do the 2nd.
You may find after you get all the stuff sorted out that you have other problems, but resolving 1&2 should get you started on the rest.

Ed Fair
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[dermoyn]

First of all the good news: the fact that it didn't crash when booting from a floppy is a good sign.

You seem to be able to get to an E prompt but setup then crashes. Yes?

Okay, let's take this step by step:

Boot from floppy.
At A: type the following, pressing enter after each line:

E:
DIR

What happens? Anything? Error msg? Can you see the Win98 directory?

If it went okay type:

cd win98
setup

This will be another copy of setup.exe. If the original setup.exe is corrupt this just might work. Although it's a bit unlikely that E:\setup.exe is the only corrupt file on your CD. But there's a chance. (Incidentally, you could just try copying over E:\win98\SETUP.EXE and or E:\setup.exe to a floppy disk - not sure if it will fit. In order to copy it it has to be able to read it. So if it can't copy it it ain't going to run.)

Also, you need to find out whether it's just setup.exe that is the problem or does this happen with all .exe files. You gave this impression earlier but have you experienced this or are you generalising and assuming coz it didn't work with the win98 setup.exe that all executables are out? Try running at the A: prompt

fdisk /status

Did it crash or what? If it was okay then it's not executables as such that are the problem.

So, to narrow it down further, and check out if it's executables from CD ROMS that are the problem: try an executable from an other CD (doesn't have to be W98). Does it run? If so, then, as edfair says, it's time to look at your Win98 CD.

Finally, you can either try the CD in a friend's CD drive or borrow another copy of W98 and see if that works. If the former works it's time to start looking at your CD ROM drive. If the latter, throw your own CD far away. However, the fact that you are using the library to write these posts does not indicate much likelihood of being able to do either.

Incidentally, bad clusters don't get fixed. They get marked so data does not get written to them and as a result the data becomes inaccessible. In the old days a few bad clusters were to be expected, not so with modern hard drives. Keep an eye on them - if they start to increase it could be an indication of imminent h/d failure. The fact that they move around is weird. Makes me think you have new ones and it missed the other ones this time around!

How did you find out about the clusters? Ran scandisk from A: ? That's an executable.

You're still not answering all the questions - e.g. did you try to boot from the CD? (Mind you, seeing the problems you have that's unlikely to work but try to rule stuff out and confirm other stuff as you go) - but if you have to go to a library I can appreciate your difficulty.
Hang in there.
Dermot

 

[Juniare]

It doesn't matter now, I've thrown my computer away.
I'm getting a new one

 

[TonyBose]

Now I'm mad.

...Mac

Humpty Dumpty was pushed!!