PCTech Forums

The BIOS looks okay - I think it's something to do with the start up files on the floppy not being copied to where they need to be in the Windows system.
Has anyone else come acros this?

Go to Start / Run / Type MSCONFIG and click "Ok".
On the "General" Tab is Normal startup" selected?
Also, with Win98, you need to have Boot from Floppy 1st then Hard Drive.
brad

Thanks Brad.
The settings you suggest are as they should be.
What happens is when I power up the machine, I am first of all prompted to 'Start with CD ROM support',
Then it goes through the normal boot process and I get

'PCI Bus Scan Complete'.

After this and a bit more boot process, the screen displays

'Loading'.

Then
'Preparing to start your computer. This may take a few minutes'.

Then I get the message

'Not reading from Drive A.
Abort Retry Fail'.

I put the floppy in, press R and it starts as it normally would.

Bewildered is me!

Sounds like maybe when you formated the hard drive you did not put the system files on the hard drive. I believe you can do this by booting the PC with a boot disk and entering the command Sys C:. It has been so long since I messed with DOS this may not be correct so hopefully if this is not the correct command someone will correct it for you.

Thanks Ranger Bob.
Tried that - it copied filed over and I got a confirmation message, so I rebooted, and it's still the same.
I think I'm going to have to try and reformat again.
DAMN!!

What does your Autoexec.bat, Config.sys and MSDOS.sys files have in them?

Ah - Ranger Bob

I have 2 versions hese files on my machine. I have then in C; (I copied the boot up drive contents to C: after W98 installation (and I started having problems), there is another version in C:\Windows\Command\EBD, and the same version in C:\Windows\32 (except MSDOS.sys which is not in C:\Windows\Command\EBD).

Can I email you the files (and presumably I need to delete the files from C:)

(did I do bad?)

Jemmo

The files that are being used will be the ones in the root directory, that is C:, so you should not have copied anything over the ones you had from the Windows install CD.

Yes you can email the files to me but I am thinking that in the MSDOS.sys file it is pointing to the A drive instead of C:\Windows.

Cheers Ranger Bob - but I have decided to reformat and do a clean reinstall - and everything is now working okay.

Problem solved.

Cheers Ranger Bob - but I have decided to reformat and do a clean reinstall - and everything is now working okay.

Problem solved.

Just finised reading this post. Based on the information provided it definatly looked like a bad install of the OS.. If the RAM drive is still visible that is a classic sign of a bad install..

Can we remove solved problems from the board please.. Removing solved problems will allow quicker responses to the people who are still having problems..

Thanks
Digital_DNA