OS wont install after fdisk and format.

[Parangles]

I just keep getting " Bad command.." when I type SETUP either at an A:\ prompt or at C:\ . I have also tried D:\ and E:\ and get
message saying like 'drive not recognised '

Win98 was on my wifes old PC that I just fdisked and formatted and I am now trying to reinstall Windows with a W95 Cd and a W98 upgrade. It seems to make no difference whether I use a win95
or W98 start up diskette, with the CD in the tray or not. Boot up
with or without diskette or CD- no difference.

What can I try now ? Thanks !







.

[mc2phat]

Hello,

If the command you type was just "setup" that could be your problem. Boot to the A drive, and type D:SETUP which will launch the setup program on your Win98 CD.
"D" being the CD-ROM. Might be E or F depending on how many devices you have.

You can also go into the BIOS, set first boot device to CD, and boot to the Win98 CD.
HTH

[Markoman01027]

If the W95 disk is bootable. Just go into your BIOS and set your CD-ROM to boot first. Put in the W95 CD in, save BIOS settings and exit, and you will launch into W95 setup. If that does not work. You will need to find the Drive letter of your cd-rom, and type in what Mc2phat said.

[Confused]

Boot from the WIN98 CD. Since it is a upgrade, at some point it will ask for a qualifying OS. Put in your WIN95 CD.
Chas

[Parangles]

Well.. I'm in big trouble now. I decided that the problem was that I had accepted an existing primary DOS partition, so I went back to FDISK and Deleted it , and created a NEW primary partition.
Now, when I bootup with nothing I get " missing operating system " So DOS has gone ? ! When I try to boot with a floppy
boot disc I get " non system disc"
It will not go into BIOS either now. What an idiot .
What can I do now ? Reinstall DOS I guess but how, and from where ? Thanks !!
Chris.

[Confused]

What kind of PC is this. I made that mistake once with a Compaq and deleted a partition with BIOS stored on it. So make and model would help.

If it isn't a propritary PC, you should be able to boot from CD by going into BIOS and setting CD as first boot device.
Chas

Be sure you are booting from WIN98 CD.

[jmatt]

Run fdisk again & check if you have a partition , if not do again , reboot & Format .

Make sure the partition is active & you format after you finish in fdisk .

Use boot disk & after the A prompt , type fdisk /mbr & press Enter . Note the space after fdisk .

Try again .

http://www.computerhope.com/sfdisk3.htm
http://www.pcguide.com/proc/setup/hdd.htm
http://www.fdisk.com/fdisk/
http://support.microsoft.com/support.../Q255/8/67.ASP
http://www.compguystechweb.com/troub...fdisk_scr.html
http://www.compguystechweb.com/troub...isk/index.html

[Parangles]

Thanks guys, but please read closely. I've got a black screen saying " no operating system" with a flashing cursor. No response from keyboard at all, so I don't know how to get into BIOS again.
When I reboot and try to enter BIOS with Esc, Del, or F8 etc it has no effect. Same screen comes up " No OS " As I said I think I deleted DOS after my first post.
Am I wrong in assuming that I have deleted my DOS ? if not,..
Does anybody know where I can download or buy a copy of DOS ?
And ..how can I re load DOS with the keyboad dead (presumably as a result of no OS)
Thanks,
Chris.
PS- BIOS was set to CD as first boot but thats irrelevant now.
It is an old Pentium 166 MMX- DELL DimensionXPS M166s

[Confused]

What do you get if you boot with a WIN98 bootdisk in Drive A? That has all the DOS commands you need.

Try clearing CMOS and see if you can get into BIOS.
Chas

[Parangles]

Confused- Thanks- I had tried to boot with the boot floppy and all I had got was 'system disc error' but after your last post I tried again and it started to boot. I got an A:\ prompt typed 'setup' and then I selected ' with CD support ' and on a second time " without CD support".
Both gave me the same thing : " Windows requires 734,003 Bytes
available on your C:" with a flashing cursor under the W in Windows. Screen is dead...no response from Keyboard.
Thanks

[jmatt]

Have your tried using your boot disk , typing fdisk at the A prompt & pressing Enter , select 4 & see if you have any partitions ?

[Parangles]

Jmatt- @A:\fdisk, 4, check for partitions =
" Partition: C: 1, Status A , Type: Primary DOS, MBytes 6150, System : Unknown, Usage : 100%
Total Disc space is 6150MB "

I've always seen a small amount/difference left over- never 100%
usage of partition size and total disc space. Whats up ?

Cheers,
Chris.

[jmatt]

Chris , that is normal , it just means that your single partition is using all the hard drive .
If you had 2 partitions of equal size , it would read 50% .

When you close fdisk , do you get a flashing message , saying no partition is active ?

If so , click on option 2 .

Once you have checked that , press esc & reboot on your boot disk to an A prompt & format c:/u

u = unconditional .

Next do the fdisk /mbr .

Reboot to your boot disk with cd room support .

Now try setup . ( w95 )

[Parangles]

Jmatt- what GMT are you ? If its 15 hours ahead of East coast USA
its midnight there and 9 am here.

Did as you said- some success- Setup started, but got an error msg saying version of ScanDisc and version of DOS incompatible.
Also "found compressed volume or disc cache utility....check
compressed volume with disc compression software, or remove
disc cache utility..then rerun setup "

I found SETUP.TXT on Win95 CD which says you can run the Smartdrive.exe (also on 95 ) to replace all other existing disc cache utilities. I'll try it and see what happens.


Cheers,
Chris

[jmatt]

Chris , Gmt + 8 ( Perth )

Just waiting on your next post .

[Parangles]

Jmatt- Thanks- Got the Smartdrv.exe off a Win95 to a floppy and ran it .
Numerous commands in its help ( I think help command is: Smartdrv /? ) and saw all the commands. Tried a few but there was no response. I'm still getting only the darn " Windows requires 734 etc bytes " and the prompt disappears. I need some assistance on how to type the command. Bunch of prefixes I don't understand.
Will try to copy the info off, using the info you and others gave in
the post on printing DOS screens, and try to paste it in here.

I am -5 hrs gmt and its now 5pm Wed so it would be what ? in Perth? 6 am Thurs ?
Get back to you.
Chris.

[jmatt]

8:08am Thursday now .

[Parangles]

Man I have had it ! 3 hours trying to print screen.
Maybe I'll recover after a nights sleep.
See my comments in the DOS print screen post.
Thanks for your continued interest ! Manana.

[Parangles]

Come on guys, give me some ideas please.
To summarise : on bootup: " no operating system " with no prompt/cursor, and dead keyboard.
Tried booting with 3 different boot floppies " non system disc"
Changed BIOS to " boot CD first " booted with WinCD, setup starts and then a buch of error messages about cache etc.and screen freeze.
Just did a Maxtor diagnostic test. Excellent hard drive !

Explain this- If I have formatted, what is left ? What is causing problem? How about a LOW level format ?? Or ?
Thanks,
Chris.

[reboot]

Chris. Grab an updated boot disk from www.bootdisk.com
Go into BIOS setup, disable anti-virus, aka "Trend chip away".
Set "PnP OS Installed" to NO.
Boot to the startup disk, remove all partitions.
Get the zero fill disk utility from the hard drive manufacturer's site, and run it.
Boot to the startup disk and re-fdisk the drive, making the first partition active.
Restart to the disk again, and see if you can get into the Windows setup.
If you've tried any/all of these steps, please post back with results, as it's near impossible to determing what's happened by reading the thread.

[Parangles]

Reboot- I just tried a new bootdisc from bootdisc.com. Booting with it IN I get "System disk error ...replace disk etc"
Booting WITHOUT the floppy, about a half second after the first beep, I get " missing operating system" and there is no prompt/cursor. I cannot get into BIOS - I have tried esc and del,
but the " missing OS " comes on before it would go into BIOS.
THe BIOS had previously been set to "start CD first" and so I tried to just let it boot with the W98 CD in, but just got the old " missing OS"
THanks.
EDit -PS I'm reading an old A+ manual and it says that the first thing that BIOS looks for when booting up is an OS and the first place is the floppy. So what the heck would cause it to say " system disc error' when it reads the floppy ??

[reboot]

Stick the bootdisk back in.
Hold your finger on the INSERT key, and turn the system on.
Try clearing the CMOS (again).

[jmatt]

Chris , after you try Jim's way & you still have problems .

Try isolating the problem , if you have an old HD , cable it to your comp ( no need to bolt it in , just leave it loose outside the case . Disconnect the old HD ) & see if you can get it working .

[Parangles]

Did not work. Tried substituting a hard drive but as expected it went crazy looking for drivers and could not read the CD drive so I couldn't load drivers. Put it in the garage and will use it for parts. AMEN ! Thanks to all.

[Parangles]

Well unbelievably I finally got it going!!!
One of the problems I picked up at bootdisk.com was that at at A:> I should type D: and then when I got a D:\ prompt, type 'setup'. I was typing D:\ and getting "invalid drive name "

All the instructions everywhere on fdisk/format/install skim over this very simple action.... and just say like " now at the A: prompt,
run setup "
There were other complications, something WAS wrong, but the
D: versus D:\ at A: prompt is worth remembering.

A million thanks to all. I am going to send that guy Ed at bootdisk a Paypal donation. There is a lot of good stuff there.
Chris