another sick computer

winston · Post by **winston** » 1 May 2001 9:41 am

I have another good one to ask. My sister bought a computer at a garage sale, NEC 120 pentium with an 8 gig hard drive. It take the thing forever to boot up and while booting the win95 opening screen comes up, then the win98 screen comes up. I finally got the video and sound cards working but I cannot install anything from the cdrom, the fatal blue screen of death comes up. The cdrom will read the NEC recovery disk just fine. I have been exploring the computer and it says if you have win98 loaded and try to reinstall win95 there will be a lot of conflicts. That's what I think has happened. I tried to reformat C drive but the screen says improper dos system. What can I do to either get it reformated so I can install win95 or win98 and not have all these problems? I have used a win95 and win98 boot disk to try to go to dos but cannot get there. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. thanks Winston

Larry Beck · Post by **Larry Beck** » 1 May 2001 10:12 am

I tried to reformat C drive but the screen says improper dos system.

At an MS-Dos prompt such as C:\windows, type VER and it will give you the version of the installed operating system - 95 or 98. Then use utilities from that version. You could find a computer running that version and make a boot disk, then copy fdisk & format to the boot disk and you've got your "disk of death" for the NEC.

In this case, if you want to wipe everything, use fdisk and delete the partition, then do a new install of 98. With 98 you can use all of the 8 meg drive as one big C: drive. Remember this is pretty terminal for the existing files.

Disclaimer: whatever happens, It's not my fault. Mileage may vary.

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http://members.home.net/lbeck22/

Bill Crook · Post by **Bill Crook** » 1 May 2001 10:55 am

First of all, DON'T use the NEC recovery disk !!!!

When you use the f-disk function,true it does remove everything. We start with a new egg. We need to format the C:drive again.

Now, a little known fact......

Every hard disk,regardless of size,brand,etc,etc has a "Master Boot Record" embedded into it. This record is NOT removed when we do a rebuild of the drive using f-disk and format !!!

If your havin' troubles like you stated here, we must also reconstruct the "Master Boot Record" too.

Believe it or not, this ia a very simple operation....

1) After you run f-disk,set the partition,etc,etc... we are ready to format the virgin drive.

2) When you format the new C: drive, use this command line... (minus the quote marks)

"format c: /mbr"

What this does is: along with formatting the drive, it writes a new "Master Boot Record" to the new C: drive.

Using this option, we have basically a new drive from the factory!!

I would recommend installing "Windows 98,SE"
as the newer O/S systems are buggy,have no really new useful functions other than Web-based "Patches". ME and Windows 2000 is a laught !!!

Hope this helps you fix your Computer....

ERROR......ERROR......ERROR

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>You may have had a small mistype or two on your post
in the computer section. /mbr is an fdisk switch, not
format. I use it a a quick way to kill boot sector
viruses without damaging the rest of the hard disk.

Here's some infor on fdisk with switches: http://www.computerhope.com/fdiskhlp.htm
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I received the above e-mail from a forumn member. After checking it out, I find it works from FDISK not FORMAT. I appolize for the error on my part.

Bill[This message was edited by Bill Crook on 02 May 2001 at 05:44 AM.]

winston · Post by **winston** » 1 May 2001 12:03 pm

Bill and Larry. I cannot get to dos, error message incorrect version. I can get to the partitions but cannot delete.

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 1 May 2001 12:13 pm

Do you have a "recovery" boot diskette from another system? That will let you boot up to DOS.
Those older systems were designed for Windows 95. Some will run Win98 and some will but not well. Most of those older PC's were lacking in memory. Some had 8 or 16Mb and that was considered plenty for WIN95, however more like 48 or 64mb was really needed for Win95.

If the NEC recovery CD is for Win95 and the original configuration, I'd go that route and at least get it back up to the OEM disk load. Once you get to that point you can decide if you want to upgrade it to Win98 or whatever configuration you want.

I had an older IBM Aptiva, with a 120Mhz Pentium (PI) in it. It ran fine on Win95 but had all kinds of problems with WIN98. After screwing with it for about 6 months I broke down and went back WIN95.

Larry Beck · Post by **Larry Beck** » 1 May 2001 1:31 pm

error message incorrect version

This is caused when the version of the system files (io.sys etc.) doesn't match the utilities such as fdisk and format.

As Jack said, a repair boot floppy disk from any other W95 or W98 system would work quite nicely. If you can't find one, do this:
1. find a known good computer running 95 or 98
2. Start | Programs | MSdos
3. insert a spare floppy disk
4. Format a: /s
5a. if the machine is a win98 box, type copy c:\windows\command\ebd\*.*
5b. if W95 copy the files format and fdisk from the \windows\command directory
That will make an emergency Boot disk. There's probably an easier way to do that too, I just never used it. There is a readme file on the disk if made from W98 that tells you how to recover.
In short, this machine ended up with system files from one windows version and utilities from another. Your job is to bring some consistancy to the whole thing.
Reinstalling the operating system is not a bad thing. The PC magazine people recommend that it be done yearly.
Jack is right about memory. The more the better as you upgrade MS products. Right now it's so cheap for SDRAM, you may want to buy some more just on general principals. If it takes EDO memory, that's another story.

Everett Cox · Post by **Everett Cox** » 1 May 2001 5:10 pm

Winston-- If you're going to scrap what's currently on the har disk, make sure you copy the CD-ROM drivers to a floppy. If you don't have them, you won't be able to use the CD drive to reload either operating system.

All the 'make recovery disk' procedures I've seen in Win95/98 fail to include some required files/programs. Try the disk to insure the system will properly boot to DOS and that you can access the CDROM drive. If you need assistance in creating a good system floppy, ask. --Everett

winston · Post by **winston** » 1 May 2001 5:31 pm

Guys, I appreciate all the help. So far I still cannot get to dos. If I get there I can format C and will probably be on my way. Everet, thanks for the tip on the cd rom. I think I have tried everything listed and still no luck.
Jack Stoner, the machine has 80mb of ram with supposedly an 8 gig hard drive.
One thing I have noticed that everytime I delete any files like aol, prodigy, that sort of stuff, games with an uninstall program attached, it always comes back when I reboot the computer.

Everett Cox · Post by **Everett Cox** » 1 May 2001 8:37 pm

Winston-- Have you done as Jack suggested and created a 'boot' floppy on your main computer??? If not, do so. That floppy should then allow you to boot the sick computer to DOS. You have to, at least, be able to get that far in order to re-configure your system. Remember, though, the boot floppy for a different machine will likely NOT contain the proper CDRom driver.

Don't go too far untill you have a GOOD, COMPLETE, VERIFIED WORKING boot floppy for the sick machine.

Using Windows Explorer, navigate to the root folder for drive C. Do you have an Autoexec.bat and a Config.sys file??? If so, open the Config.sys file in NotePad and look for a line similar to this:

DEVICE=C:\CDROM\IDE.SYS /D:IDECD000

In this example, the 'CDROM' is the folder containing the driver file 'IDE.SYS'. Your folder and driver name will be different but, if you have a config file containing such an entry, that MIGHT tell you what CDRom driver you need to put on the boot floppy. Since you seem to have some problem with the CD drive, that is not a guarantee.

Your comments about deleted files 'coming back' is very puzzling. --Everett

winston · Post by **winston** » 3 May 2001 12:28 pm

Mike, could you please send me the program? thanks Winston

winston · Post by **winston** » 11 May 2001 10:18 am

Update on sick computer. Computer is up and running like a champ using win98. Thanks and Thanks to everyone who responded, to Everet and Mike for sending programs. Hope I can return the favor sometime. Winston