Messed up computer.

[Jareds411]

Wow. Recently, I was installing a new program on an old junk 233mhz win 95 computer while I was half asleep. I ended up with different versions of drivers and dll's. The CD drive wouldn't even work. . I decided to format the HD, and thought that after it was wiped, BIOS would recognize the CD drive. I was wrong . I now have a computer with no OS that can't recognize the CD-Rom drive. Is there any way to save it, or should I just junk it?

[Relyt]

Jareds,

Go to www.bootdisk.com and download a boot disk for the Win95 and you should be able to boot off the floppy and then install the os off the cd.

cheers

edit: here's the site for win95 original boot disk -

http://www.bluevolcano.com/stuff/boot95a.exe

[Jareds411]

Lol, I got it to recognize the cd-rom drive, and ran setup.exe, but it couldn't find the hard drive. Then I restarted the computer and tried to access drive C:\, but it didn't find anything. What do I do now?

[Relyt]

Well you have a couple of things going on in that box for sure. I would enter setup first and check to see if my hdd's presence was recognized. (probably just press the Delete Key after the Post beep. At the bottom of the screen you should see which key that is required to press to enter setup). Your CMOS Setup Utility might have an IDE HDD AUTO DETECTION. (I'm currently looking at my old 500mhz box that I use for a firewall). Run that util to select your hdd as the Primary Master, have it auto-detect (press Y at the prompt). It may ask you if you want to Auto-detect the Secondary Master etc, just press Y if prompted, and save the changes. If there is not Auto-Detect, is usually pretty easy to do manually). After you have detected your hdd, go into the STANDARD CMOS SETUP and see if your hdd is listed as the master. If after you have detected the hdd, and if it doesn't remember your changes after you saved them, meaning it's not listed on the Primary Master row of the Standard Menu, then I would suspect a low battery on your main board. And by judging the age of the computer, bet you haven't changed it....lol. I haven't either on that ole 500 box I have had for eons.

If the hdd is listed in the STANDARD CMOS SETUP, save your changes and exit out of the CMOS SETUP UTILITY. Just for giggles, place the Win95 in and let the thing boot up and see if it lists you CPU Speed, Memory, HDD, CDROM, etc. and then goes into the setup for windows. If it does recognize the hdd but not the CDROM, put that boot disk in and reboot the computer and let the floppy load it's stuff and then you should be able to load the os by typing setup.

let us know.

good luck

[Jareds411]

I got it set as my master IDE hd and all that stuff is fine. I can't seem to find the letter of the drive though. My floppy is A:\ and my cd-rom is r:\. I've tried every other letter with no avail. I tried to run r:\setup.exe, but it said "Cannont create a temporary directory. If you have HPFS or NTFS installed on your hard drive, you will need to create an MS-DOS boot partition to set up windows." What do I do now?

[Relyt]

The saga continues....lol

ok, so I'm assuming you booted off the floppy. After you let the boot disk load all of it's stuff into memory (and when it asked you if you wanted CDRom support and you said yes), it should have stopped at an A:\

Did you type: A:\setup

That's usually all it takes, I don't remember needing to chase down another drive letter.

If that doesn't work try booting off the CD and see what it says as well.

Since you only formatted the drive,

I decided to format the HD,

and didn't change the partitions, you don't need to make any new ones.

[Jareds411]

There is no setup file on the floppy, drive A:\. I have to use the floppy, which takes me to a DOS prompt. (A:\&gt The setup file for windows is on the CD-ROM, so I have to type R:\setup.exe. That is when it gives me the thing about a temporary directory.

[Relyt]

Okie Dokie then it sounds like somehow you damaged or deleted the partition. Not hard to fix that. The boot disk you downloaded should have a util on it called "fdisk". Put the floppy disk back into the drive and reboot your computer. When you get back to the A:\>, type in: fdisk at the prompt.(you might have to do a little looking on the floppy though, but it should be there)

When the menu opens up you will have five choices: you want to select choice (3) and delete any partitions that are in there, then press esc to get back to the main menu, select (1) to create a Dos Partition. Then select (1) Create Primary Dos Partition. Next a small menu will open up and ask: Do you wish to use the maximum available size for a Primary DOS Partition and make the partition active (Y/N) ........................[Y] , accept the default by pressing the enter key. This creates a single primary active partition, using the full size of the disk(win95 likes). Press the Esc key one or more times until you are back at the Dos Prompt. Next you must format the hdd once again, A:\> format c:

When it's done, now you have your partition that they were asking for and you should be able to install win95!

Here's a link to let you see what you doing if you have never used fdisk before:

http://www.compguystechweb.com/troub...fdisk_scr.html

If the boot disk you downloaded doesn't have fdisk on it, search www.google.com to get it.

good luck again.....

[nihil]

Hi,

I think that Relyt has it right, it certainly sounds as if your partition tables are corrupt if it is automatically allocating "R" to the CD drive. I agree that it would probably be best to try for a single partition.

Another possible approach is to go to the HDD m,anufacturer's site and get their installation/diagnostics tools. That should at least get you to the point of having a properly recognised drive on your machine, then you should be able to proceed with the Win95 installation.

Win95?

The attached might amuse you

[Jareds411]

Thanks a ton! Win 95 is up and running great. Unfourtunately, I've decided to get rid of windows and install SUSE Linux.