...upon booting up a friends PC, after the normal screen, it gets to the part where it reads "Boot Record from Floppy....not found" - normal enough. Then below it, it reads "Missing Operating System". The PC then refuses to go past that point, understandably. With the Boot Disk in the A:\, the screen goes past the "Missing Operating System" to a black screen. From here you can either type in HELP, and read about the boot up disk, you can also format C drive etc. How do you install Windows from this point? I have told him to try D:\ and setup.exe, but this only got so far, before stopping. Any suggestions? (Windows 98SE) Thanks.
It's this one: http://www.biazzi.org/docs/boot98se.exe (opens a download) - or from www.bootdisk.com, its the windows 98SE. come to think of it, when it boots up with the disk in, and "FDISK" is typed in, it goes through the process of assigning a primary DOS partition, and an extended, and a logical one. Also mentions allowing support for large disk. When I have run FDISK, and then restart, it comes up with the Windows 98 setup, but that is as far as it gets, some file is missing - RAM DRIVE? This is on the floppy disk, I know, but we are both stuck... better yet, how can he install Windows on his PC from scratch? Like from turning it on, what to do, and how to do it.
when you boot from the Win98SE CD does it not give you the option to load windows with cd-rom support? you should do that and then enter "setup" on "d:\" if you hard drive isnt formated it wont let you install!
it reads Setup is scanning registry. "Windows requires 700000+ bytes (something like that) on yo" It doesn't go past that point. Could that mean the hard disk isn't formatted properly? In which case how do I do that? Boot up with the floppy and type in FORMAT? or FDISK, and then what?
maybe it needs to be formated? start with the win98se startup disk, format using "format c:"! then restart win the win98se cd! whats the exact message you get, maybe a search on google with the "error message" would come up with some help?
i tried a couple things but my head is hurting, so he's gonna get a professional in. Thanks for the info though!
It's been so long since I've actively used Win 9x, I've forgotten alot of stuff about it. (Win 95 is 10 years old!).
I suddenly had one last bright idea before asking an expert. I opened up the BIOS, and changed the Boot Order from Floppy, IDE-0, CDROM to Floppy, CDROM, IDE-0. Restart, Welcome to Windows 98 Setup...anyways, all ok now. Thanks for the help.
Don't feel bad. I still do dumb stuff, especially when it comes to plugging in the floppy cable (you have no clue how many times I've plugged that in wrong)
That's certainly understandable, as pin-1 is not always oriented the same way! I can't wait until floppies go away altogether... :stickout:
