Thread: A Word of Wisdom from DavidP

>>>I put in the startup disk and nothing happened. absolutely nothing. I have also tried a Win95 startup disk, same result.


So your computer didn't boot from A: at all? (like the light didn't come on and the diskette didn't get read from and you couldn't select start computer with cdrom support).... or.... you started computer with cdrom support from the boot disk and your cdrom didn't work. Sorry to be redundant... but it is so hard when you cannot talk face to face. Something gets lost in the text.

I have to go... but if you get into the BIOS, make sure A: is your first boot device and then boot from the a: drive with cdrom support. Also make sure that your CDROM is turned on to AUTO or equiv if such a choice is available...

~Betazep

it boots to the A:, but nothing happens. it just goes to the command prompt.

I tried F10 ten trillion times, both before it beeped and right when i heard it beep 2x....nothing happened.

I reformatted the hd and put in the Win95 startup disk, but it still just goes to the A: prompt. Nothing happens.

I'd still e-mail compaq and see if it's a common thing...

Or, you could spend about $30 and just replace it.

I tried taking out the keyboard. It came up with this error:

301 Keyboard error or System Unit Error

Then it displayed a blue window at the bottom of the Screen which said:

F1: Boot

But there was no F10 option for BIOS. So I put back in the keyboard and pressed F10 anyways, it just rebooted the computer.

What happened when you pressed F1? (if you did)

rebooted

Could it be that your HD's bad, and not the mobo? If you happen to have a spare somewhere, I'd try to swap that into it....

(grasping at straws)

the HD is fine....it hasnt had any problems.

go you access the drive letter?

eg. "cd x:" works? where x is the cd rom.

>>>it boots to the A:, but nothing happens. it just goes to the command prompt.

take dos of of your hard-drive... wipe the drive clean. You say that it boots to the a:, then it has to go through the boot process on the win98 startup disk. If that is the case, then you would have had to select start computer with cdrom support. If you didn't, then you do not have a win98 startup disk. If you did and it goes to the command prompt. Then you should have cdrom support. Your cdrom may have a drive letter that isn't normal because support software may be loaded to the D drive though it is usually loaded to the E: drive if you have one partionless HD and a CDROM. Type D: enter and if that doesn't work type e: enter. Do a dir in these if possible. When the computer boots from the 98 boot disk (you do not need a HD for this to happen) and you select to start the computer from CDROM support, it should tell you during the boot process what drive you are using for your cdrom or it will tell you if there is an error. I think I could email you a win98 startup disk if you suspect that you do not have an appropriate one. Good luck

no, when i try to access the cdrom drive it says:

Invalid Drive Specification

email me the Win98 bootup disk...

Whenever I put in my Win98 startup disk it says it is an invalid system disk.

Whenever I put in my Win95 startup disk it just says:

Starting Windows 95....

and then goes to the A: prompt.

You need another win98 se start-up disc.

the one you have is probably corrupted. You will then get a chance to boot with cd-rom support. dont do that you dont need it yet. at the command prompt type fdisk
type y for large disc support
delete the partition you are using and then recreate it and make it primary then exit from fdisk and reboot from the win98 start-up disc.
this time at the command prompt switch over to the created ramdrive and you will find the format program. type...
format c: /s
and let it do its thing.
reboot again from the disc and this time select with cd rom support. Now you can put your windows disc into the cd drive and run setup.

he doesn't need large disk support... but the rest holds true other than your really do not need to xfer the system files to the HD because 98 setup will overwrite them anyway and you don't want to be booting from the hd anyway until windows is installed.

It appears that I cannot make an email copy of the win98 startup disk due to the way the boot sector is written. The executable that I have can be downloaded here...

http://jason-n3xt.org/dos/

I would get the WIN98SE one instead of WIN98 because it has more tools. Download the executable... run it to create a boot disk. Use the boot disk as stoned_coder said. There is a huge difference between the win98 and win95 bootdisks due to cdrom support etc. Do this... and you will be up and running in a couple of hours.

~Betazep