Hi,

I've searched around the forum, but couldnt find a simulair thread about this.
After last night, my boot hd stopped booting to windows (98).
The only thing i did after it was working fine was that i took all the cables out, layed the pc on it's side, to replace a cpu cooler, then put it back.
After that, when i start the PC, it gets stuck after it sais; Loading Windows 98, in the DOS screen.

All i can think of is that there must be something wrong with the C drive (although i can still see the contents in DOS). The data on the C drive is very important to me, i realy cant affort to lose that.

Also when i start the PC with a bootdisk (floppy), the same thing happens.

Anyone know how i can get back in safely?

There is a possibility that you jarred the hard drive loose. You might want to try reconnecting the wires from CPU and hard drive. Make sure they are in tight.

Welcome to TechSpot

Did you by any chance swap the IDE-connections around between first and second HD?
Like STK said, check all cable-work, including those going to the mobo!

i rechecked all the cables, and everything seems to be fine. I also didn't change any cables or even touch them when i installed the new fan. So it's hard to believe the problem is in the cables.

Then he also wouldnt been able to read the HD in DOS right?

(what's mobo?)

Motherboard. You checked all wires running from HD to motherboard? I don't know, you might have to install a nes BIOS.

checked everything.. all connected how they should be, and like they were when everything was working fine.

will FIXBOOT or FIXMBR work?

If you are going to use FIXBOOT, be careful. I have haerd of time when FIXBOOT deleted partitoin tables, which wont let you access any files. There are ways of getting them back but they are long and strenuous. If you do it and it does happen come back and we will help you get them back.

Good Luck

Check that the bios is set to boot from hd0, if the drive is connected in tandem with others, try it on its own. Check that all the pins on the hd are ok. Check that the jumpers are set ok.

FIXBOOT sounds too dangerous then. What i'll try first is to copy the whole C drive to another drive, then re-install windows on the C (boot) drive.

Thanks for the quick responses & help.

No problem, thats why we are here. Yes, use FIXBOOT as a last resort, as it can be good, but could cause a few hours-days of misery.

You can install Windows without formatting a drive. So you should be able to reinstall 98 without formatting the C drive, so all your data on it will not be deleted. That said there is no way that your drive should have stopped working from changing the CPU cooler. Do you have a bootable Win 98 CD? Can that get you into the system?

Just a thaught, but maybe a corrupt hard drive?

Fixboot and Fixmbr are Windows XP procedures.
If in W98 your bootsector is on the blink, you can get it back by starting from a (w98-start)floppy and by typing in fdisk /mbr followed by hitting Enter.
If you have dual-booting, you will have to fix that afterwards as well (don't know out of my head).

Ok, i've tried some more things and nothing seems to work. But maybe it will be clearer for you guys where the problem might be.

First of all, every time i start the PC, it does different things. Or at least sometimes it goes further then other times (untill it gets stuck again).
This also gave me the chance to start in safe mode once or twice, but then when i see the desktop, again it freezes after several seconds.
Loading it from a bootdisk doesnt work,
Installing windows on top of the old one doesnt work (gets stuck in the install).

It looks like the 'mobo' loses connection with all the hardware at a certain point, so it can't continue loading.

What i've also done is that i've put the important HD aside, and tried to install Windows on an empty HD. This ALSO gets stuck at the install, which hopefully means that it's not a harddisk problem.

Can anyone get any new information from all this?

Check if the cooler on your CPU is still properly attached and that the fan is working. Air should be blowing AWAY from the CPU.
You may have a case of overheating.
Did you apply thermal paste between CPU and cooler?

Yeah thats one thing i expected it could be.
And i was going to apply cooling paste, but i didnt because i wasnt sure how to do it after i took the fan off. The new fan is working fine though. And i also have my PC case open with a big (room)fan pointed at it, so it's realy strange that it would overheat so fast after starting the PC right?

Well if the thermal paste is not applied properly and there is no contact of thermal paste between the CPU die and heatsink and nothing else to aid the dissipation of heat, the cpu will just overheat.

Alright, i fixed the problem last night.

I removed the cpu cooler/fan, cleaned all the old cooling paste off, put new cooling paste on, put the fan back, and everything was fine again.
So the first time i took the cpu fan off, the old cooling paste must have lost connection with the heatsink so the cpu kept overheating.

Learned a valuable lesson from the whole experience
Thanks for the help guys!