Win98 reformat problems 5

[Ngolem]

My son decided to get creative with his machine. He wanted to reformat his hard drive and reinstall Win98.

He made a Win98 boot disk from the add/remove software applet, using the startup tab so that he could use his CDROM.

However, the computer would not recognize the floppy in the A Drive and merrily went on to boot his computer in the normal manner.

He then decided to exit to MS DOS where he went to the A-Drive and typed in Format C:...the C: drive formatted fine apparently.

He then rebooted his machine, now the machine just hangs when it encounters the A Drive...it doesn't go any further. I think because it is looking for info on the A drive and cannot find any.

How can we get his computer to recognize that there is a boot disk in the floppy??

Jim Broadbent

The quality of the answer is directly proportional to the quality of the problem statement!

 

[SESaskDFC]

Howdy:

Did he boot into BIOS first and make sure the first boot device was set for a: drive or floppy, as the case may be??

Murray

 

[SkipCox]

That would be the answer.

Skip

http://home.comcast.net/~scox9/index.html

 

[ImpetusEra]

As said check to make sure A is listed before C in the boot order. You should also be able to place the cdrom before A and C and boot straight from that.

 

[Ngolem]

well that didn't seem to work.

Through Setup we assigned the First Boot Disk to the floppy and the second to the hard drive.

No Change...the floppy is read to a certain point then hangs. We tried it with a Startup Disk I made off of his machine when I was reformatting my WIn95 machine (using a Win98 Startup disk so that I had access to my CD-rom)

Same action....

Is there another setting that needs to be changed?

The hard drive shows in the list of hard drives as the master...but there is no size given...though apparently he did reformat it before rebooting.

Jim Broadbent

The quality of the answer is directly proportional to the quality of the problem statement!

 

[ImpetusEra]

Actually my friend had a similar problem except his hanged when trying to boot from the cd-rom. If the BIOS allows try to boot from cdrom. If not go to bootdisk.com and get the Windows 98SE OEM bootdisk. The disk your using may have gone bad.

 

[onlymel]

Try doing this.

Run, type in "fdisk status" (without the commas)

Observe that your drive is not partitioned and 100%

Worth a try.

Mel in the UK

 

[TekTippy4U]

If you've an OEM 98 CD..use that ; toss the floppies..if not make sure you use a 98 floppy not 95....Fdisk is diff(no Fat32 support) and there's no generic cdrom drivers, and no extract command..,etc, on 95's.
If you have OEM, put CDROM as "First Boot device" in BIOS

Get a "Brand New" blank Floppy
Get a clean 98 bootdisk from

http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

make sure to view this

http://www.bootdisk.com/read1st.htm

remember the Cdrom drive is "R" from bootdisk
If using floppy....make sure the Floppy controller is "Enabled" in BIOS

Also make sure to "Disable Boot Sector AntiVirus Protection" in BIOS
Make sure to "Re-Enable AV in BIOS" as soon as Win98 is installed...before adding anything else

Once win98 i installed, next install Mobo chipset drivers



TT4U

Notification:
These are just "my" thoughts....and should be carefully measured against other opinions....I try very hard to impart correct info at all times.

 

[TekTippy4U]

I hope the puter isn't a Compaq or HP.....
is it?
If so, what year, make, model?, there may be a hidden partition on the HDD with an OEM specific 98 image...and System BIOS ROM may reside here as well, as utilities..so
"don't" blow away the partitions just yet from using fdisk..

TT4U

Notification:
These are just "my" thoughts....and should be carefully measured against other opinions....I try very hard to impart correct info at all times.

 

[Ngolem]

Ok....

this is some more info
Computer: Zoltec
CHIP: Intel Celeron with built-in Math Processor, 433 Mhz
AmiBios System 1985-1996 (c)
Amibios date: 07/15/95

We tried to use the CD-rom drive with the original Win98 system and we got an error saying that it wasn't a system disk...this is not a copied disk to our knowledge...it is right out the box from the OEM bundle of software.

We went back to the floppy again disabled the chip AV, the floppy controler shows 1.44 MB 31/2" and is the first Boot device.

When we start the machine...after verifying the ram and dislaying the settings we see the following

1. The floppy drive light comes on
2. A message appears

SDRAM @ DIMM # : 1,2

3. we hear the floppy working on the disk

4. A message appears

Searching for Boot Record from Floppy....OK

5. The floppy light continues to shine...the noise stops...the system hangs.

I hope this is useful info for you.

Jim Broadbent

The quality of the answer is directly proportional to the quality of the problem statement!

 

[TekTippy4U]

If it won't recognize any of the system disks......it sounds like Drive Overlay software (ala PartitionMagic or Ontrack, SpinRite,etc..) was used to enable the BIOS to see a Larger disc
..ie, The Master Boot Record is changed....and/or possibly infected with a virus.

If drive overlay was used and u don't know which one, you may have to low-level format(LLF) the disc with a utility from the manu. of disc (Maxtor,Western Digital, IBM, etc)

Did u d/l a fresh floppy from bootdisk.com?...and use that?
....you'll need to uncompress the D/l files and copy them to floppy, in order to work right..

it is right out the box from the OEM bundle of software
Is it a Zoltec "Restore" CD... OR a Windows98 OEM CD?

Some Systems came with Both.....

Ex...I have the LLF utility for my disc on my "Restore CD" along with manu. setup parameters, and other utilities....but the whole OS is on the Win98 OEM CD..

Your BIOS looks like it could use an Update also..if you go the LLF route....

TT4U

Notification:
These are just "my" thoughts....and should be carefully measured against other opinions....I try very hard to impart correct info at all times.

 

[Ngolem]

****
Did u d/l a fresh floppy from bootdisk.com?...and use that?
....you'll need to uncompress the D/l files and copy them to floppy, in order to work right..
****

This hasn't worked so far. Obviously I cannot get this from his machine and my machine runs on Win95. When I try to create the disk using my machine I get only so far then it crashes. He is going to try to get this disk from another win98 machine.

*****
it is right out the box from the OEM bundle of software
Is it a Zoltec "Restore" CD... OR a Windows98 OEM CD?
*****

it is the Windows98 OEM CD.

***
Your BIOS looks like it could use an Update also..if you go the LLF route....
***

How does one update a BIOS?

Someone suggested a virus causing the probem...how can that be investigated??




Jim Broadbent

The quality of the answer is directly proportional to the quality of the problem statement!

 

[ImpetusEra]

On the Win95 machine you can go to bootdisk.com and download a Windows 98SE bootdisk.

 

[Ngolem]

the download was no problem...it was the creation of the Bootdisk from Bootdisk.exe that did not work from my Win95 machine.

Jim Broadbent

The quality of the answer is directly proportional to the quality of the problem statement!

 

[ImpetusEra]

hmm, it should work. I've made both 98SE and 95 disks on a 2000 machine.

 

[TekTippy4U]

Read this please about using the OEM CD...
thread615-710673

TT4U

Notification:
These are just "my" thoughts....and should be carefully measured against other opinions.
Backup All Important Data/Docs..All involved shall be spared the grief.

 

[TekTippy4U]

For BIOS update look here

http://www.ami.com/

I searched Google for Zoltec and came up with zilch concerning PC's....
Usually you'd get the update from the OEM ala Dell, Gateway, IBM, etc....
your's may be so old that it's not even a Flash ROM
(eeprom)

Since '96 or so, BIOS chips have mostly been Flash upgradeable meaning you didn't have to try to replace the actual chip on the mobo......you can Flash upgrade it with a small utility from BIOS manu...

TT4U

Notification:
These are just "my" thoughts....and should be carefully measured against other opinions.
Backup All Important Data/Docs..All involved shall be spared the grief.

 

[Ngolem]

Quoting your message in Thread615-710673

If you've an OEM It'll automatically recognize that there are no partitions and instruct you to Fdisk and Format from CD....(if not an OEM, It'll say "Boot disc failure, insert System disc and hit enter&quot or somesuch.....
when you restart w/OEM Choose
2. "Boot from CD ROM"
Then choose
1. "Start Windows98 Setup from CD Rom"
when asked "setup windows now?" hit enter
choose "configure unallocated HD space" (recommended) hit enter
Now Fdisk will run on it's own
select yes for "large disc support"(Fat32) as mentioned above...hit enter
ignore the "startup disc in Drive A:\ prompt" before restarting
Upon Restart it'll automatically start Formatting the HDD...
once format is complete
Win98 Setup now begins

just to re-ask;
Are you using a 98 startup floppy?
Are u using an Upgrade CD??....Full Retail??


We get this error when we try using the CD-Rom

"Boot disc failure, insert System disc and hit enter"

The disk looks like the original disk to me...the label looks right to me...are you saying that this might be some kind of copied disk?

Jim Broadbent

The quality of the answer is directly proportional to the quality of the problem statement!

 

[TekTippy4U]

No, not at all
an OEM CD says "for distribution with a new pc only" and "for product support contact your manu"

do u think i'd spend all this time if i thought diff....?
just to re-ask;
Are you using a 98 startup floppy?
Are u using an Upgrade CD??....Full Retail??
This was taken from the other thread, and was not intended for you

I was just trying to give you some step-by-step using the OEM CD..since i had just written it

bear with me...as these threads are long, and a little hard to remember everything said (who said what, and in which thread)....and i'm in more than a few...

Anyway, if it's the original oem it'll do what i said above..
You have a different issue then....like i said way up this post, like drive overlay maybe...
and/OR
You need a new CD drive.....
Go and get a new/used $25-$45 CD-RW
(try to keep the speed on the low end, ala 32x12x40, and pop it in...and it'll work.)
Worked for me when I did this awhile ago to a 1996 gigabyte mobo win95 PentiumPro166mHz w/32mb Ram....
Turns out it was an old Goldstar CDROM in there and only supported DOS drivers which i didn't have anymore once i wiped....
Popped in a Lite-on 32x12x40 CDRW and off it went like a charm





TT4U

Notification:
These are just "my" thoughts....and should be carefully measured against other opinions.
Backup All Important Data/Docs..All involved shall be spared the grief.

 

[Ngolem]

Ok...I have been looking into this a little further and also remembering oddities of his machine from the past.

Oddity: It seems to me that he used to keep a floppy disk in the A drive all the time and I know it was just a scratch disk. He never had a boot stopped because of a non-system disk being in the A drive...and I believe that it looked at the A drive first. I kinda wondered about that at the time but forgot about it until lately.

I read in a PC repair manual in Chapters books (I think it is a Canadian Chain and has all of the lastest books, Like a library to me ) and it discribed problems booting from a floppy if there was a drive overlay software applied?? So I think this is the problem...sorry for not understanding you before.

It was very sketchy on the fixing of this but the description of the problem fits this one.

I think the computer is searching the A drive but because of this "Drive overlay situation" it cannot boot so it hangs or maybe moves onto the C Drive which isn't a system drive yet.

How do I over-ride this Drive overlay?? The repair manual takes something about running some type of software/consulting manuals??? Can someone enlighten me about this...

I think this is definately the problem....not the quality of the boot/startup disk.



Jim Broadbent

The quality of the answer is directly proportional to the quality of the problem statement!