installing a new OS

[captain537]

Hello
Once you reformat the hard drive and there is no information left on it, shouldn't you be able to install any platform as long as you have the boot dissc for it. I am working on a friends dinosaur, just trying to restore it so his kids can use it. It Millenium on it, but had a serious virus. I reformatted and re partioned the hard drive, then downloaded a 98 SE boot disc, when i put the boot disc in and reboot, it sees it but won't go to the A prompt. He doesn't have the Millenium disc anymore or the boot disc. I have a 98SE disc, thats why I tried 98 with a 98SE boot disc. Am I doing something wrong???
any help would be greatly apprecited
than
Tha Caaptain

 

[Mulga]

What exactly do you mean by "it sees it etc"? Is the system configured to boot from a floppy disk? you can check this in Setup, usually accessed by hitting the delete key as the system first starts. It should be configured to boot from floppy first then cdrom and/or hdd after that. If this is correct I would have to suggest the boot floppy is no good, try testing it in another system.

Help us to help you, please post back and tell us if this helped.
All things are possible except skiing through a revolving door.

 

[edfair]

There are boot sector virii that will attach when the initial scan is made and not allow itself to be overwritten.

The only solution if you get one of those is to do a zero-fill where every sector is overwritten. Sometimes the zero-fill is referred to as a low level format.

You can also get some problems that look like this when a drive overlay has been used to extend the capabilities of the drive.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[garebo]

Its very common for one floppy drive to not accept a floppy disk made from another floppy drive. The floppy drives wear and the mechanisms inside are "off-center" as far as their tracking and so they will reject some disks. I know this for a fact as i have test benches for the charity work i do. Sometimes i have to try 5 or 6 boot disks before one will work. Its not the fault of the boot disk usually, its the fault of the floppy drive.
Simply go to another machine that has win 98 and make a few disks and keep trying, sooner or later one will work. I have about 30 win98se boot disks and sometimes it takes me 5 or 6 disks before one will work. Sometimes the same one wont work twice in a row even! Thats how fussy they become. Dont forget, the floppy drive is very old technology, more mechanical than digital and subject to the laws of wear and tear among other things.
So its not you, its not your machines, its only different floppy drives and different floppy disks, sooner or later one with match and work!



Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[BadBigBen]

BTW, if it had ME on it, than you should be able to boot from CD, of course this will only work if your 98se CD is bootable... in the BIOS setup you can set your BOOT Devices/Order (Set it to Floppy/CDRom/HDD)...



Ben

If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer...

 

[captain537]

Thank you for all your info.
here is where I am at.
I went back in and re set advanced start up to boot from CD, just to try that. It did not work.
Then I re set it to boot from floppy then cdrom.
I went to bootdisc.com and made 10 different boots, I copied them to brand new floppy.
I tried all 10, none went past......searching for boot reacord OK. It would not go to A prompt.
I have another boot disc, labeled start up. When I put that in, it recognizes it, and goes to the A prompt and says it is ready to start Windows 95. Why can't I get a 98 SE boot dissc to do the same so it wwill install the operating system from the CD?
When I try to boot just from CDROM, I get a message that says....hit the HOME key to boot from local drive.......then it goes thru a bunch of script and says the partition is not correct.
Right now, the HDD is not formatted, the only way I can create a partition is to use the Win95 start up disk then it will let me get to FDISK and create a partition.
Don't I neeed a 98SE boot disc to do the same thing, let me get to where I am creating a partition for the install of Win 98SE?
is there another way to partition the HD first? Is that what I am doing wrong?
thanx Guys
I aappreciate your help
Captain

 

[captain537]

UPDATE::

I now have a Windows 98 boot disc that will let me get to the A prompt.
Should I FDISK first and create the partition for C
What do I do next/
I am not sure what the boot disc does. Once I get to the A prompt, and partition the HD, will it then let me install the OS??
Or do I need to manually copy drivers dor the CD ROM drive to the floppy so it becomes part of the boot disc, or will the computer just be able to install the OS by itself now that I have the A prompt?
Thank you
Captain

 

[garebo]

you use boot disk to get to a:
then use any disk, including win98 boot disk to run fdisk. Use fdisk to partition the drive and also make it active, fdisk will prompt for that you just press y for yes, same as when it asks if you want large disk support, press y for yes there as well.
When partitioned and made active you have to reboot, so make sure boot disk is still in a: drive. When it boots to a drive the give this command:

format c:
you will get a prompt say yes
Once formatting is done put install cd into cdrom and then, from a: drive you give this command:

setup

that will do it and win98 will install.


Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[captain537]

Hello
getting closer
I was able to format C.......said for mat complete
then I just hit enter when it aksed for volume label
then it goes back to A:\> I typed setup
it said bad commaand or file name

suggestions???

Thanx
Capt

 

[captain537]

I tried another disc
this one boots and ssayss starting windows 95
then it says
NO DRIVES ARE ATTACHED OR DRIVERS ARE POWERED DOWN
THE DVICE DRIVER IS NOT INSTALLED

DEVICE DRIVER NOT FOUND 'OEMCD001'
NO VALID CCD ROM DRIVERS SELECTED
INVALID DRIVE SPECIFICATION
INVALID DIRECTORY
BAD COMMAND OR FILE NAME

Then it DOES got to A:\> and wwill let me get to fdisc.

Does this mean I have to copy the drivers for the cdd rom onto floppy first or how do I make the cd rom drivers avaailable to be seen?

Thanx

 

[garebo]

Ok, as you boot up, you need to go into your bios and make sure your bios "sees" and recognizes your hard drive. Bios's differ but there is usually a place or setting you can go to that will identify your hard drive. You need to have your bios see or identify the hard drive first before you can install an os.
So if you get that part done perhaps you can go ahead.
You have partitioned and formatted this hard drive and made it active, right? Sounds as if you have by what you said, so just do the above and you should be good to go!



Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[captain537]

Garebo
thanx for all your help but I am still having a problem.
I went back nd started from scratch again.
But doesn't the message below mean I do not have the drivers for the cd rom and don't I need them for it to go to cd rom and install the sysstem?

NO DRIVES ARE ATTACHED OR DRIVERS ARE POWERED DOWN
THE DVICE DRIVER IS NOT INSTALLED

DEVICE DRIVER NOT FOUND 'OEMCD001'
NO VALID CD ROM DRIVERS SELECTED
INVALID DRIVE SPECIFICATION
INVALID DIRECTORY
BAD COMMAND OR FILE NAME
I tried looking for them, it is a Samsung SW 408. So far I didd not have any luck finding them.

Captain

 

[edfair]

I would suggest that you return to the 98 boot disk. On bootup with that floppy you should (depending on where you got it) see a choice to boot with CD support or no CD support. If you choose CD support you should see a driver load message showing what hardware driver loaded and the results of the hardware identification. Later in the boot process the autoexec.bat file will attempt to make a software attachment to the hardware drivers. If the command line in the autoexec.bat does not use the correct attachment name you will get an error message saying it can't find the hardware driver.
If you successfully get to the point where the CD is recognized you should also get an indication of where in the drive chain the CD hardware is located. You move to that drive (ex e and at the e:> prompt run setup.
Normal 98 boot disk operation is to create a ramdisk to hold some utilities. The ramdisk normally goes to d: if there is a recognizable legitimate c:. It will go higher if there is more than the c: available on hard drives. Ther ramdrive takes the next drive space then the CD, if it loads hardware driver and software driver, will go to the next higher drive letter.


Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[garebo]

yes, sorry, i didnt read the whole thing and it specifically says that basically there is no cdrom.
You have to make sure the c drive is on the primary ide cable and that the hard drive is set at master. You can go to the hard drive mfgr website to get the jumper setup correct as they differ from drive to drive.
Then the cdrom can be also put on the primary ide cable but it would then be jumpered as slave. Have you done all that?
And have you gone into the bios and made sure as i mentioned above that the bios sees the hard drive?
The bios doesnt always see the cdrom, but on bootup it will show up. Again, it depends on what bios is installed, some bios will show the cdrom.
Let us know what your bios has to tell you.


Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[PicayuneJim]

Commands in CONFIG.SYS were generally used to allocate buffers and load/initialize device drivers. You need to modify the CONFIG.SYS file to include the following line (as the last line):

DEVICE=A:\CDDRIVER.SYS /D:CDDRV001

where CDDRIVER.SYS is your CD driver's full name.

Add to the AUTOEXEC.BAT:

A:\MSCDEX.EXE /D:CDDRV001 /L

Make certain the CD driver and MSCDEX.EXE are in the root directory of the floppy.

Now when you boot from the floppy, just go to the CD and run it.

 

[PicayuneJim]

Sorry!

The CD driver letter is D