My cousin brought over his Compaq pc [winXP] which had a very bad virus, when I checked the HD was shot so I took a working HD out of my old Dell PII [win98] and placed it into the Compaq without changing anything in the BIOS only to get this message when booted up "No operating system found", I then took the HD out and put it back into the Dell pc where it came from and to my surpise got the same message there, someone told me this

"this sounds like you have the CIH virus that overwrites the BIOS with garbage. It was on that drive you put in your other machine, and has now infected your other drive and possibly your other machines bios.
It also wipes the hard drive(s).

http://www.geocities.com/SiliconVall...52/remove.html

In this case the AVP antivirus program on a write protected floppy would be the tool of choice. As for flashing your bios, good luck with that. Shouldn't be too bad a problem for a compaq but if you got some cheapo motherboard, that may be an entirely different case. You'll have to look closely at the bios chip and get the right bios flash for it."

So I went to the site in the link above and proceeded to follow it's instructions to get my old Dell pc up and running again with win98 but I think my first problem here before I can do so is that the only pc in my house that still has a floppy drive is my son's Dell PIII which has win2000 and from my reading up on OS and Bios e.t.c, it appears to me that I need to create the floppies on a pc that has win98? Can anyone advise me how to proceed from here please? Thanks.

You can get bootdisks here - http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

I was given that address already [thanks] but I am not sure how to proceed as I am new to this so please bear with me. Ok, so I go to the site, since the pc on which I will be creating the floppy has a win2000 OS and the pc I am working on wiill be loaded with win98, exactly which instructions should I follow on Bootdisk.com to create the floppy, can you or anyone else take a look and post the link here for me please? Thanks

Download the Win98 or (98SE) OEM file depending on whether you have 98 or 98SE.Then put a blank floppy in the drive,and click on the file.It should do the rest.More info - http://s-logue.home.att.net/USB-Files/BootDisk.html

ok, thanks, have downloaded the 98 OEM "mirror 1" option unto the floppy, is that it?

It sounds good to me.You`ll have to use it in conjunction with your Anti-virus floppy as detailed in that link in your first post.This is all assuming that a virus is the cause of the problem.

Yeah, I will be following [or at least, trying to] follow those instructions in a little bit, will keep you posted, really appreciate the help, stay tuned.

I went to the link given in my first post to create the 2nd floppy with the anti-virus program [F-Prot], a disk is 1.44MB and the F-Prot is 1.62 [unzipped] so it still can't fit on 1 disk, I then unzipped hoping to copy only the required 5 files mentioned unto the floppy but each individual file is larger than 1.44 so what's the deal here please? How am I supposed to get an anti-virus program unto a 1.44 floppy? If someone has some other tutorial that may be easier for me to follow, please post!!

Also, the boot disk did not work, I get an error message
"Non-System disk or disk error"
help?

I don`t want to sound like a defeatist here,but it seems to me,if you don`t have any important files on the Dell and you want it working,why not format the drive and re-install the OS.If you don`t have a 98 CD,you could buy 98SE for about $25.That`s assuming the BIOS is OK.Life is too short to waste time chasing viruses on an old PC.
If nobody has a better suggestion,that`s what I`d do.Philosophy lesson over. - http://www.d-a-l.com/reinstall-win98.php

This is exactly what I am trying to do but it appears that the pc is not recognizing the drive hence the reasoning why I think that the virus is causing this. I used a win2k series of floppy setup disks to test, it went all the way to start installing the OS but then it did not recognize the drive so I had to abort, what is troubling here is that the pc easily recognised the floppy setup disks but does not recognise any boot disks, I also tried a "cd" boot disk, same problem.

Oh well,all I can do is mutter something about checking cables being connected properly,and then start a new thread.This one`s getting a bit long for anyone to bother with.And another thing,sometimes old HDs do jam up.Especially when they get taking out and moved about.

Changed the IDE cable and now the pc recognizes the drive but I can't get to load any OS for some reason. I have no choice but to throw out this pc now as I don't if anything can be done but I would like to ask this question just for the knowledge and would appreciate an answer.

Whenever you come across a pc that needs repairing and since most sources say that in order for a Boot disk to be successful, it has to be made on the pc itself, is there anything you can do or do you simply condemn it? If so, then what would be the purpose of a site like Bootdisk.com if the disk has to be made on the pc in question? Doesn't make any sense at all to me, can anyone explain this please?

Random comments :

1.Your BIOS recognizes the drive.This is progress.You have set the jumpers to "Master"and it is on the end of the IDE cable(just to be sure) ?
2.You CAN download bootdisks,and they do work.Finding the one you need may be more tricky.Yet another useless link - http://www.onecomputerguy.com/instal...tm#boot_floppy
3.Floppy drives can be begged, borrowed or appropriated very cheaply.
4.How far does the install get ? Does anything happen ?
5.Don`t throw the PC out.Ideas sometimes take to arrive.You could use it to experiment with Linux(assuming it will load).

1] Yes, the Bios recognizes the drive as the Master. Question, I have 2 other drives that don't have any diagrams on it to tell me how to set to Master, slave ot Cable Select, how can I know this?


2] I will go look at that link now, thanks.

4] When I boot the pc, it goes through POST then I get a screen for a split-second that I can't recognize what is on it as it immediately goes to another screen that says "starting windows", this is a black screen that has an LED going from left to right at the bottom of the screen, when this LED goes all the way to the right, the pc reboots itself and goes through this same exact procedure repeatedly until I manually shut if off?

1.Jumpers :There should be some indication somewhere in very small letters indicating jumper positions.If not,google the name of your drive.This is for Samsung http://freepctech.com/pc/001/install..._devices.shtml

2.Troubleshooting 98 startup - First check out another useless link - http://www.geocities.com/~budallen/98startup.html

3.If it still won`t start from the HD,set your BIOS to boot from the CD put in your 98 CD and try to re-install as in this useless link - http://www.windowsreinstall.com/win9...exfullpage.htm

4.You might have to look at this useless link if 3.doesn`t work.- http://service.dell.com/dell/step/0,...+11299,00.html

5.All the information you need is there,it`s just a matter of getting it in the right order.

Apprecitae it, will look into all links today, thanks!

ok, got the jumper situation taken care of. I still didn't get the answer to my question unless I miunderstood your answers, which was , what do you do when you don't know what OS was on the drive so how would you know which bootdisk to use?

If you bought the Dell new with 98 on it,then it should be the OEM(original equipment manufacturer) version.If you or someone else installed the retail version it won`t be the OEM version.

Good news, finally got the pc to work, well, almost there, this one has win95, immediate problem is that is that the mouse worked the first time it wne to windows but now it doesn't so I am going to attempt to load win98, another question [surprised?], how does one know when a bootdisk is needed, at what point?