Computer wont startup

[J_Bone]

This is second hand info.... I'm trying to fix a nephews PC.

Windows 98..

PC will go through BIOS and start to startup,
just before Windows loads it blanks out.

Any suggestions?

 

[StormBringer]

Will it star in safe mode? press F8 at POST screen when it says "Starting Windows 98" You'll get a menu to choose how to start.

 

[J_Bone]

ok,
the computer reads

"Invaild system disc"

"Replace disc, press any key"

" Boot from ATAI CD Rom"

There was no Floppy or CD in.

I tried talking him through to see if the Ribbon cables or power cable was plugged in and he said "YES".

Could this be a bad hard drive?


thanks

 

[Nodsu]

It could be a bad hard drive or it may just be a screwed up hard drive/partition/filesystem.

You should boot from a floppy or the Windows 98 CD into DOS mode and look in what condition the hard drive is.

 

[J_Bone]

I got it to boot to DOS from the CD, but it showed the CD as the A: drive. WTF?
In DOS what do I look for and how?

Thanks

 

[Abraxas]

Perhaps there is a RAM drive installed on that machine. A virtual hard drive created out of additional RAM memory. It can be fixed, but I don't know much about that.
A friend of mine once had the same problem. I should fix it for him, although I didn't know very much about computers myself. I stumbled upon this RAM drive and didn't know what to do. Finally, I formatted the drive and reinstalled the OS.

 

[Nodsu]

First thing to check is whether BIOS recognises the hard drive. If it isn't then there is a problem with HD installation or BIOS settings. Or HD itself.

In DOS what do I look for and how?

In DOS, first look for C: drive (just do "c:" <enter>)
If you can get to C: then all is not lost. Under C: do dir and see if you have anything in there.

If your windows installation is in place, then you just have to reinstall the boot files.

If the C: is empty, then most likely you have successfully formatted it

If you can't get to C: then it is no longer formatted or the partition is not there. This is even worse news.

If you run fdisk and it says that you don't have a hard drive installed.. Bad, bad, bad.

 

[J_Bone]

Just as its suppose to show the drives, it gave the error. So I couldn't tell if it reconised the C: drive.

I think the BIOS did see the hard drive.
But it showed files in the A: drive when there was no floppy? I booted from the CD and maybe it showed the CD ROM as the Floppy? Maybe it needs a bios update?

 

[Nodsu]

The Windows CDROM being shown as a floppy is not an error. Windows installation CD creates a RAM drive containing essential utilities and stuff and names is as A:

 

[J_Bone]

ah.... gotcha.
I tried changing drives but I was typing "cd c". ooups I guess its the wrong OS command. lol. I forgot I wasn't in UNIX.

Thanks