Aptiva boot up issue

[wolfhound]

I was recently asked by a family member to come over
and see if I could fix their Aptiva. It seems that
he put in the recovery disk, per IBM, and now everything
is completely jazzed. No start up, only errors and a
C: prompt. Only this VMM32.VXD not in path.

It seems that the thought of going back to the baseline
with this machine was a good idea. However, now I
am unable to get the boot floppy to work and just
re-load Win 95 from the CD-Rom.

Any thoughts, besides tossing it, as to how I can
get this machine to accept a re-load of the OS?

Thanks.

[highrisemech]

Enter the bios and check the boot order.

[racerbrownn]

yes, your bios may have the cdrom ahead of the floppy [doubtful] but to be sure, remove any cd's from the cdrom and try to boot to an a:\ prompt using a startup disc from another win 95 machine. to make one, it's in control panel/ add/remove programs under the startup disc tab. lets see if you can get to a a:\ to make sure the motherboard is functioning.

[wolfhound]

I have checked the boot order. All is good there.

Also, tried to make a boot disk. I may try to make another
tonight.

I am thinking that the "recovery CD" did something. I just
put my finger on it.

[racerbrownn]

recovery cd or not, you should be able to boot to an a:\ with the startup floppy unless the harddrive or motherboard has gone south. usually the motherboard will give some error message relating to the harddrive if the hdd is fritzed.
you mentioned seeing a c:\ ? try typing dir and hit enter. this will display the directory of anything seen on the hdd. using the /p will slow things to one page at a time if there is alot to display. [dir/p] it would be helpful to know if anything is listed.

sometimes, using the boot floppy to get to an a:\ switch to c:\ and run format c: will erase the gibberish and rerunning the recovery disc might work. but thats the last thing to try since it already didn't work right once.

[highrisemech]

If the boot order has the c:\ before the floppy a:/ or the cdrom,you will never be able to boot from the floppy or cdrom.That is why is was recommended to check the boot order. If the boot order is ok and it still does not work then I would suggest trying another boot disk. If that does not work then thereis aproblem with the floppy drive, cable or controller.

[racerbrownn]

i see your point highrise... i forgot that it could happen somehow but i've never seen it that way unless someone really goofed while in the bios messing around. kind of like this mess above.

[highrisemech]

Provided that the floppy is working and listed as the first boot device in the bios and using a good boot disk there should not be a problem. Ihaveseen instances where people made a bad boot disk, that would throw them a curve ball.
Usually if there is a problem withthe floppydrive you will recieve that error 40