Boot/install/reinstall win98-winXP problem

[MarcLis]

Hi all,

a couple of day ago I came home to a computer with black screen, not to be kicked alive. OK just a reboot and we are on again....(reboot the hard way by reset button)

NOT.
Normal BIOS operation, normal GRUB dual boot, choosing my win XP home, getting the normal fail/save screen after a harsh reboot BUT not any of the choices would start up (normal/last known/failsave/failsave without network/failsave commandprompt). Instead I was confronted with the same black screen.
Checked my Linux RH8, which was ok and could read my windows drives. PFHUU all was still there. Tried some rescue with virusscanning the WinXP disk from Linux, looking ok.

Am I being hacked??? Well lets try with a new disk to reinstall XP. NOPE:boot ok, setup ok until loading drivers and starting the graphical installation > black screen...
same story with W98 WXP-pro.
but Linux install OK.
checked BIOS nothing strange, reset BIOS on motherboard
nothing changed. :hotbounce
run memtest-86 no problem
change keyboard, mouse, unplugged DVD.>no change I can't reboot or reinstall. After looking around on the internet and trying the tips and trick I found here I have no idear where the error lies. Is there a special thing windows does with probing hardware (the same way all from win 98-XP) which is killed somehow and that this feature is not used in linux RH9 setup?
Can one reset more than one's BIOS or harddisk?

Anyone having a clue? :dead:

system:
mobo Mainboard L7VTA
CPU AMD Athlon XP 1800 MHz
MEM 512 / 1024
Disk 80 GB Maxtor 2x
graph 128 mb Asus/Nvidia

 

[Mictlantecuhtli]

Sounds more like the boot sector of Windows partition is damaged, or the partition not set active.

The latter can be checked from GRUB's command line, with the following commands:

root (hd0,0) (or whatever the proper partition is for you)

makeactive

chainloader +1

boot

 

[kenny81]

before you try to reformat the hard drive try debuging the drive. Go to microsoft and there is a file called CDENAB.EXE and there s script to use in does that format the hard drive. If you can reinstall windows after that the hard drive needs replaced.

How to run the Debug Script

The following debug script removes DOS and non-DOS partitions on the hard drive. This debug script allows you to convert a drive from an incompatible partition structure to one that will work with FDISK.EXE such as converting Linux partitions to MS-DOS partitions.


Insert the boot disk that contains the Debug command into the floppy disk drive.

Restart the computer.
A black screen with the Microsoft Windows® 95 Startup Menu appears.

Press the <5> key, and then press the <Enter> key.
The boot process concludes with an A:\> prompt followed by a blinking cursor (underline).

From the A:\> prompt, type the following commands, and then press the <Enter> key after each command:

NOTE: Type the bolded text only (the debug prompt is a dash). You may receive an error if you type anything other than the bold text. The non-bolded text represents the system response that will appear after typing each command and pressing the <Enter> key.

debug
-F 200 L1000 0
-A CS:100
xxxx:0100 MOV AX,301
xxxx:0103 MOV BX,200
xxxx:0106 MOV CX,1
xxxx:0109 MOV DX,80

NOTE: Type 80 for the primary hard drive - HD 0, or type 81 for the secondary hard drive - HD 1.
In most cases, the primary hard drive is required 80.

xxxx:010C INT 13
xxxx:010E INT 20
xxxx:0110 (Leave this line blank. Press the <Enter> key to continue.)
-G

The message Program terminated normally appears.



Press the power button to turn off your computer.

 

[kenny81]

I mean if the hard drive will not format after that the hard is bad. I am having a bad day!