WIN 98 Boot Sector Repair?? 1

[SuperDoc]

I have a WIN 98 SE machine recently updated to the latest patches. Has a $ GB disk & 256 MB RAM. FAt 32 format
Tried to add a new Segate 80 Gb disk as a slave on IDE 1

Machine now will recognize the old disk exists but will not boot to it. I think the Segate install utility corrupted the Boot Records on the WIN98 system disk. Seems liek there is a utility somewhere that restores/repairs a WIN 98 boot sector.

Suggestions gratefully received after many hours last night of fighting with it. I really don't want to reformat / re-install WIN 98 and spend days reloading applications.

 

[dkdude]

Hi there,

Try booting from a (boot!) floppy with SYS.COM. After boot type SYS C:

That should do the trick, provided that jumper settings on both harddrives are correct!

Good luck


Jakob

 

[ski]

If no luck with sys c:, then start with a boot floppy, at the A:\> prompt type C:, press Enter, at the C:\> prompt type fdisk /mbr, and press Enter.

 

[SuperDoc]

dkduke & ski

Thansk for advice... alas neither item worked.. I removed the second disk, and when I boot from the WIN 98 startup disk it creates a Virtual C.
I've got to be missing the obvious...
Please point out what stupid thing I am doing!

Do I need to create a differnt boot disk other than the WIN 98 startup???

The error message I get booting fromt he Startup is that I do not have a valid FAT or FAT 32 partition & the C drive flais away trying to laod and can't do it...


Frustrated
superdoc.....

 

[ski]

Make sure your floppy drive is configured either as the 1st boot device or ahead of the HD as a boot device in BIOS.

 

[SuperDoc]

Boot sequence is A,C so that's OK...
It does boot to floppy, just refuses to reapir my boot sector for me..... GRRRRRRRR

 

[HKinNYC]

Have you scandisk your HD yet?

Can you read the info on the drive at all?

 

[ski]

Following up on HKinNYC's suggestion, press and hold the Ctrl key during startup, select 'Command prompt only', press Enter, at the C:\> prompt type dir, and press Enter.

If you do not see the contents of the HD, then make sure its cables are securely connected.
If they're ok, then disconnect the new HD.
If that works, then make sure the new HD has its jumper set as Slave, and that it's connected to the middle IDE connector.
If it does work, then try a different IDE cable on the old HD, and connect it to a different power cable.

 

[SuperDoc]

The new disk is disconnected.. the origional I changed the IDE cable and it is Primary Master.. the CD is secondary master so the HDDisk is alone.. I have NO jumpers.. If I set the Master it won't evene recognize the disk exists.

I can boot with floppy and if I run fdisk it sees the drive but says it is an unknown type.

It seems liek there shoudl be soem utility somewhere to recreate the boot sector and identify the disk as FAT..

Think I'll try Segate and WD..

Any ideas are gratefully accepted. The computer's owners is whining that all his Apps Prog are on the disk... At lease he has the data in ZIP...

 

[ski]

From the way things look('do not have a valid FAT or FAT 32 partition'), it's very possible that your only option is to repartition and reformat.

 

[SuperDoc]

Hi Folks

thanks for your help & suggestions...

I FOUND THE PROBLEM !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Symantec (Roxio) GoBack had been installed and IT had changed and blocked the boot sector.. #%$#%$#%$#&%$#&

Went to Symantec webiste & found a procedure & utility to uninstall GoBack..
Followed it and lo & behold the entire machine returned including all the aplications & data.

Keep this in mind for the future..
If you have GoBack (which I won't use myself!)
UNINSTALL IT before attempting to add or update Windows..

I hate the even count the hours I spent..

Ciao

SuperDoc