PCTech Forums

I have a Windows 98 machine that will just boot to MS-DOS. I think someone deleted a bunch of files and now it will not boot into Windows. Is there any way of doing a restore without losing the info on this Hard Drive???

If you have the Win98 CD, just install Windows 98 in the same place it used to be. If it asks you to overwrite any files, just say no. No info should be lost except any that has already been deleted.

Are you saying reinstall windows over the old version? I'm kind of lost with what your telling me! I need to pull stuff off the HD so maybe I should just slave this thing to another Computer?

Usually when 98 boots into DOS mode, you are really in the Windows 98 dos mode.

From the Dos mode, hit [ALT] and [Enter] at the same time. Then close out the DOS prompt screen. This should fix it

When I hook the Windows 98 HD to my XP System with a IDE Adapter it sees the drive as MS-DOS_6 and when you click on it you see a folder that says DOS ans a Virtual Device Driver File which is WINA20.386 any ideas how to access the My Documents Folder from here?

So I reinstalled Windows 98SE over the old copy, I didn't fdisk or fomat so it should have saved all the info in the My Docs Folder but it seems to be gone. Now I see where it says Volume in drive C: is MS-DOS_6. Is my info still there are am I out of luck. From what I've been reading the MS-DOS_6 thing has something to do with FAT16. Can I somehow change this back to FAT32 and see my old files? I did slave this Hard Drive to my XP Machine and it still calls the drive MS-DOS_6, and shows those same two things. The DOS folder and the Virtual Device Driver file WINA20.386. This is freaking me out!!!!!