No Boot
#1
02-08-02, 11:17 AM
No Boot
My brother tried to put a 40gig Western Digital in his computer. It is a FIC VA503 with AMD K6-2/550 MHz running win98 and 64k ram. Windows would not boot as master/slave or slave/master to the old 2gig or as a single drive. He put the old 2 gig back in and got it running fine again.
Then I came along and tried to put my hand in it.
I tried everything he had, but when I put the 2gig back in, it would not boot. I have tried to boot to A: with a startup disc, to C
: with Win98 on it and to CDdrive with the Win98 disc. The post checks the memory, checks the hard drive (s), CD drive and zip drive. On the next screen it shows the status and then "Verifying DMI Pool Data......." and stops. After I have restarted several times and tried different CMOS settings such as turning the virus checker off, it will go one step farther. It says "booting Windows 98" and goes to the "Windows 98 logo with the clowds in the sky" and it stops there.
I took a 1gig drive out of my old computer that has win95 on it. It does the same thing. It went to the Win 95 logo and stopped.
I assume that I have something messed up in the CMOS. I have switched the drive cables, checked all the connections and checked all the jumper connections for this cpu/mother combo.
I can get to the microsoft Windows 98 startup menu. I tried to get into the safe mode. Won't go. In safe mode with command prompt, I can get to the C:\. I can get into C:\>WINDOWS and look at the directory. I tied C:\WINDOWS\WIN and got this response, "HIMEM.SYS is missing fron CONFIG.SYS".
From the C:\ I tried to go to A:\. After several tries and getting, "general failure reading drive A; Abort, Retry, Fail", I got this response. general failur reading drive "P". That's not a typo, "P".
If you can help someone who knows just enough to get into trouble, then I thank you.
Then I came along and tried to put my hand in it.
I tried everything he had, but when I put the 2gig back in, it would not boot. I have tried to boot to A: with a startup disc, to C
: with Win98 on it and to CDdrive with the Win98 disc. The post checks the memory, checks the hard drive (s), CD drive and zip drive. On the next screen it shows the status and then "Verifying DMI Pool Data......." and stops. After I have restarted several times and tried different CMOS settings such as turning the virus checker off, it will go one step farther. It says "booting Windows 98" and goes to the "Windows 98 logo with the clowds in the sky" and it stops there.
I took a 1gig drive out of my old computer that has win95 on it. It does the same thing. It went to the Win 95 logo and stopped.
I assume that I have something messed up in the CMOS. I have switched the drive cables, checked all the connections and checked all the jumper connections for this cpu/mother combo.
I can get to the microsoft Windows 98 startup menu. I tried to get into the safe mode. Won't go. In safe mode with command prompt, I can get to the C:\. I can get into C:\>WINDOWS and look at the directory. I tied C:\WINDOWS\WIN and got this response, "HIMEM.SYS is missing fron CONFIG.SYS".
From the C:\ I tried to go to A:\. After several tries and getting, "general failure reading drive A; Abort, Retry, Fail", I got this response. general failur reading drive "P". That's not a typo, "P".
If you can help someone who knows just enough to get into trouble, then I thank you.
#2
02-08-02, 11:29 AM
Limitations
I'm not familiar with your particular motherboard, but I think it is old enough to have the problem I am going to describe.
It's too big for your BIOS support. You didn't mention how you partitioned it, or copied Windows98 on to it, nor if you loaded a "loadable" disk BIOS on to it, so I can't be sure, however, I can tell you this problem I had with a FIC motherboard of that same age.
When I bought a 13 GB drive 2 or 3 years ago, I was having fits getting it to partition and work until I loaded the EZ-BIOS from the Maxtor installation kit to overcome the 8GB limit that my BIOS had. I couldn't even partition it into <8GB chunks until I did this.
Hope this helps.
It's too big for your BIOS support. You didn't mention how you partitioned it, or copied Windows98 on to it, nor if you loaded a "loadable" disk BIOS on to it, so I can't be sure, however, I can tell you this problem I had with a FIC motherboard of that same age.
When I bought a 13 GB drive 2 or 3 years ago, I was having fits getting it to partition and work until I loaded the EZ-BIOS from the Maxtor installation kit to overcome the 8GB limit that my BIOS had. I couldn't even partition it into <8GB chunks until I did this.
Hope this helps.
#3
02-08-02, 11:33 AM
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I would start be removing anything that is not required to boot into windows. sound card, modem, nic, etc and cdrom. Then remove and reseat memory (might as well rule this out first). Then make sure I have the floppy and HD cables connected correctly and securly. Try boot up, if fails would then curse several times, scratch head and then make sure I have no loose screws on or behind the MB (have done this on several occations). If it still fails to boot into windows I would then think real hard about reseting cmos to factory specs, via the MB jumper and powering up for XX seconds or removing the battery. After a min are so would reconnect the floppy, and one HD. Also check to make sure the ide and floppy cables are pushed all the way in to MB connections. On my old tyan the floppy is close to ide and has a tendancy to get one side pulled out slightly when putting in ide, or visa versa. After reseting cmos would then re-configure and try to boot up again. Then would try ide primary or secondary seperatly to make sure its not one or the other that is down.
the last time I had this happen was a loose floppy connection on the MB.
Brian
the last time I had this happen was a loose floppy connection on the MB.
Brian
#4
02-08-02, 09:15 PM
Win98 was already on the 2gig. It will not recognize the A:
drive. I need to get the 2gig working first and then I'll worry about the 40. If the board has a problem with drives larger than 2.1gig, then I have a WD EZ- install disc that should take care of that.
I took everything out including the memory and battery as BSB suggested. I also tried a different floppy drive. I don't know if it means anything, but when the MS logo comes up I can hear the hard drive wind up. The blue shadow on the bottom comes half way across and then everything stops.
Thanks again.
drive. I need to get the 2gig working first and then I'll worry about the 40. If the board has a problem with drives larger than 2.1gig, then I have a WD EZ- install disc that should take care of that.
I took everything out including the memory and battery as BSB suggested. I also tried a different floppy drive. I don't know if it means anything, but when the MS logo comes up I can hear the hard drive wind up. The blue shadow on the bottom comes half way across and then everything stops.
Thanks again.
#5
02-09-02, 12:29 AM
A few things that you don't seem to understand:
1. Win98 is one step above Win95. Win95 is one step above Win3.x. All are DOS dependant.
2. After clearing CMOS, factory and setup defaults should be established; then hope to God they work. Default settings may or may not work with your computer. If you make CMOS changes after this... write both settings down.
3. If you can't boot to DOS on A: alone it's foolish to install a hard drive. After gutting - floppy drive only, ensuring CMOS settings: Boot Sequence, PriDrive "None" or "Not installed" beforehand. One step at a time "as if" it were a newly built PC.
4. A Win95 or 98 Boot Disk makes references to C: by default. It's up to you to override those defaults by editing config.sys and msdos.sys. The logo should be disabled also. It may be hiding error messages that you need to see. It's also up to you to provide necessary real mode drivers on A:, and properly reference them in
config.sys and autoexec.bat files on A:.
5. If C: is inaccessible due to CMOS settings or the Master Boot Record on C: has been corrupted, try as you will, this problem will not be solved strictly with PnP and Windows.
6. Before attempting to reinstall the HD obtain the correct DrvParms, so they can be entered manually if necessary. How do you know that the HD was auto detected in the first place?
BSBs' advice was sound, given the circumstances, but your viewing the problem from a windows perspective. Since DOS has been deemed too difficult as discussion topic within this forum, seek someone capable.
1. Win98 is one step above Win95. Win95 is one step above Win3.x. All are DOS dependant.
2. After clearing CMOS, factory and setup defaults should be established; then hope to God they work. Default settings may or may not work with your computer. If you make CMOS changes after this... write both settings down.
3. If you can't boot to DOS on A: alone it's foolish to install a hard drive. After gutting - floppy drive only, ensuring CMOS settings: Boot Sequence, PriDrive "None" or "Not installed" beforehand. One step at a time "as if" it were a newly built PC.
4. A Win95 or 98 Boot Disk makes references to C: by default. It's up to you to override those defaults by editing config.sys and msdos.sys. The logo should be disabled also. It may be hiding error messages that you need to see. It's also up to you to provide necessary real mode drivers on A:, and properly reference them in
config.sys and autoexec.bat files on A:.
5. If C: is inaccessible due to CMOS settings or the Master Boot Record on C: has been corrupted, try as you will, this problem will not be solved strictly with PnP and Windows.
6. Before attempting to reinstall the HD obtain the correct DrvParms, so they can be entered manually if necessary. How do you know that the HD was auto detected in the first place?
BSBs' advice was sound, given the circumstances, but your viewing the problem from a windows perspective. Since DOS has been deemed too difficult as discussion topic within this forum, seek someone capable.
#6
02-10-02, 10:58 PM
You are right. I don't know what I'm doing, but I took your advice and was able to get it up and running. I stripped everything out and installed DOS 6.0 Then when I tried the WD EZ-BIOS it would only let me partition a 32gig. I had to down load a newer version from Western Digital. It recognized the 40gig and so I made it two 20gig drives.
Thanks for eneryones help.
Thanks for eneryones help.
#7
02-11-02, 04:18 AM
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DOS? I have heard about this, haven't I? congrats on getting thssystem up and running. Heres something to think about...We started learning to read and write long long ago with pictures and progressed to text as we now know it. Computers started out with text and have progressed to pictures...hmmmm.
Brian
Brian
