Win 98 boot problem

[NDuser]

A friend has asked me to help him get hit win 98 2SE machine working for him. The other day he tried to boot up an all he got was his wallpaper, no icons, and I think an hour glass.....Over the phone I helped him boot into safe mode which gave hime an error of some sort and locked up on him....Now when he boots he said he gets an error message telling him there is no OS....I am going over to look at the machine myself this afternoon....

Anyone got any ideas as to the problem and fix?

Thanx,
Jeff

[Chuckiechan]

I think you should recommed a reinstall without re formating (to save his files).

See what others recommed. Someone may have another solution like "FIXMBR" to try first.

[Richard Cranium]

Hold the "CTRL" key after power up.

Type in Scandisk and do a full scan, sometimes this fixes HD probs.

If no joy, try :
At the "C" Prompt, type in "SCANREG /RESTORE"

Choose a date prior to the error.

gluck
Doc

For 9X/Me, you need to use 'FDISK /MBR' from a bootdisk. 'FIXMBR' is for 2K/XP.

- Make sure the HDD is being recognized in the BIOS
- W/ a 9X/Me bootdisk, do 'FDISK /MBR' and reboot
- If it still doesn't boot, d/l the utility for whatever brand HDD it is. Here are some handy links.
- If he's wanting to save files, do a 'dirty install' over the old. Then recommend he do a 'clean install'.
- If it's not a big deal, just format the drive and do a 'clean install.

[noprob]

Richard Cranium - Hold the "CTRL" key after power up.Type in Scandisk and do a full scan, sometimes this fixes HD probs.If no joy, try :At the "C" Prompt, type in "SCANREG /RESTORE"Choose a date prior to the error.

also I would suggest using the win98 startup disk to boot up to if these suggestions do not apply or work,tho scanreg /restore should.
these are the switches on scandisk should you decide it's use.
scandisk /autofix /nosave /nosummary /surface C:
good luck.

[NDuser]

Okay....soon after power up the compaq tradmark shows up on his screen and right away it says "Missing operating system"

If I boot from a floppy and get to a C: prompt any command I type in results ins "Invalid Media Type...Abort, Retry, Fail?" so I was unable to do any scandisk for fdisk operations.

I'm strongly thinking his HD is toast....anyone agree?

Yes, that's why I made the suggestions in the order I did.

[John Prophet]

use f10 to get into the bios...and/or probably "esc" to take that splash screen off so you can see if the hard drive is detected during boot...sounds like it isnt.

BUT, there is a possiblity that it ISNT the hard drive....because it could be the primary IDE controller on the motherboard...and it would give the same symptoms/error message.

So, you can also try to run the hard drive off the secondary ide cable...for testing purposes the easiest way is probably just unplug the cable at the motherboard and swap em around...just hook the hard drive cable back up to the secondary....may as well leave the other one off.

If it works that way, then youll just have to run the hard drive and cdrw both on the secondary cable so you might have to play around with the hard drive and cdrw jumpers.

JP

[noprob]

scandisk is not an fdisk related command,tho they both pertain to the hard drive.
as to the validity/integrity of the hard drive in question I would have to be there myself to inspect.
can you not access the compaq bios/cmos menu?
To see if the hard drive is being recognized?
I'm not sure what key is used to access the bios/cmos on compaq.

[Richard Cranium]

Make sure the IDE cable has not gotten loose, also the power cable.

As mentioned previously, go into the BIOS and see if the Hard Drive is detected..

Doc