Win 98 Startup Problem

[adam-red]

When I restart my Windows 98 machine, it displays a message box saying "Five attempts to read block 1 failed".
Anyone know what this means? As soon as you press okay to clear the message box, everything continues and runs fine. Any response appreciated.

Adam

[Bill in SD, CA]

Welcome to TechIMO!!

Your HDD may be going "south."

Try running the manuf. diagnostic disk on the drive.

Bill

[adam-red]

I was never supplied with any diagnostic utilities. Mabye I should explain a bit more. It's actually a touchscreen EPOS till. One of these ones you get in a bar or a supermarket. At the end of the day though, it's just a box running Windows 98, a 10Gb hard drive, 28Mb RAM, a PII 266, and a network card. There's nothing else in there really.

Is it a Windows error or is it comping up in a DOS prompt?

[adam-red]

It's coming up as the machine enters the Windows desktop.

If you're able to, check to see what you have starting up when Windows does. If you can use the 'Run' menu, type in "msconfig". If you're unsure of what's starting, just post a list. Could be a utility to check to make sure everything is okay w/ the system.

If you're not having any problems w/ the system besides that, it could be a "false positive". Could also be that your HDD is getting ready to go South.

If it has parts that you can get to, you could try booting w/ a mfr floppy to test the HDD. You can find a handy list here Are you able to get into the BIOS? You should be able to identify the HDD that way.

If you don't have a floppy or a way to access the actual parts, then you'll probably have to live w/ it or get somebody who services them to check it for you.

[Optimus Prime]

The people who service them charge like £700 a day, so he's looking for a low-cost solution.