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My computer got assaulted by some nasty spyware that was no doubt created by the PCGuard creeps who installed their software on my computer and tried to get me to buy it. Anyways I tried to remove it by deleting all files that had been created on that day, yet somehow a crucial file ended up in the search and I was unable to access Windows 98. So I figured I'd delete the current partition and create another and just reinstall windows altogether. I deleted the current partition and started to create another before I received a message about formatting and rebooting. I was tired and I think I rebooted before I was supposed to as now I have nothing but the Phoenixbios setup utility on my PC. I've tried installing Dos files and using FDisk through a floppy, but when I start the computer with a floppy in it I'm told to remove it press a key. At that point I'm left with a blinking cursor that is unresponsive to anything I type with or without a floppy in the drive. I don't know why I'm unable to use the floppy drive but it seems that all I have to work with is the Phoenixbios. How can I get Dos back on my computer and my computer up and running again?
There is no reason to install DOS if your intention is to reinstall Windows, mm'kay? In fact, there's an entire forum devoted to Win95 & 98
Anyhow, try another bootdisk, on another floppy maybe, and doublecheck your CMOS settings to ensure that the floppy is the first boot device and is correctly identified there.
If nothing works, you may have a floppy drive problem (bad or dirty, controller, cable etc)
You won't be able to do a whole lot with this machine without a floppy drive, unless (of course) you can boot from your CD
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If your intention is to reinstall W98 then you don't need to install DOS. If you have the W98 CD that is bootable and your computer can boot from the CD try that first. Otherwise you will need a W98 setup floppy or bootdisk that has the CD ROM drivers.
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You can go to www.bootdisk.com and download the bootdisk you need. :-)
Are you getting "Not a System Disk... press any key" message? It is because the floppy you have is not bootable.
98% of the population is asleep. The other 2% are staring around in complete amazement, abject terror, or both.
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I think we covered that a couple of days ago (nice of you to try and summarize though)
Credit *is* due to the OP for:
a) finding the DOS forum, and
b) asking a very DOS-like question
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I think you need to boot from a dos floppy, then use fdisk to check the state of your hdd.
You advise you deleted the partition, thus you probably eed to recreate it (using fdisk).
Then format the partition and reinstall w98, which includes an embedded version of dos.
Good Luck - Keep us posted.
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Well I'll print this stuff up, get some more bootable floppies and see what I can do. My impression was that when I rebooted after deleting my only partition and after failing to first format the new partition it wiped out everything on my PC other than the most underlying software (Phoenixbios). But I'll look into the advise given here and report back. Thanks!
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And actually Zenith that was the same exact website that I had used to create my last 2 bootdisks, but I still received that error message. So I don't know why they weren't bootable. But like I said I'll try a few different things and report back.
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My thinking is that with all the partitions deleted, the system has no DOS and that with no DOS, the system would not be able to recognize a boot disk since the boot disk commands such as fdisk.exe are DOS commands in the first place. Is this not correct?
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It is the BIOS that determines what device the system boots from. If your hard drive is empty your boot order should be floppy, cd, then hard drive. A system does not have to boot from DOS. It can start from any valid operating system, (linux, beos, windows, dos, etc.) and from any valid media that the BIOS supports (cd, hard drive, floppy disk, network, etc.).
Check the boot order in your BIOS and set it to floppy first, then retry with the boot floppy. Test the boot floppy in another computer.
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I seem to slowly be getting somewhere. I created a second boot disk and have managed to get the A and C prompts to show, though its saying the D prompt is not valid. I'm thinking that may have something to do with the bios settings. At any rate when I try to run fdisk it gives me some abort, retry fail message, though when I try it with another floppy that I made with fdisk on it, it says "wrong ms-dos version." So how do I find out which ms-dos version is the correct one? Is there a way I can get a copy of the correct fdisk and format files once I know which version to use?
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You need a boot disk with the version of the operating system that you are installing. If you mix them up you get the wrong version message. Usually you don't get drive 'd' when the cd-rom driver(s) is not loaded. The cd drivers are needed only in 'DOS'. Win 98 loads its own CD drivers when Windows is started.
So you have to decide what you are trying to do and what have you gotten done. To find out what you have done, at the DOS prompt type ver to find out what version of the operating system you have. If you are trying to install Win 98 you need a Win 98 setup floppy (the boot disk). This contains the boot files, utilities, generic CD-ROM driver files. It allows you to setup the hard drive and access the Windows CD to complete the installation. If you have to download a boot disk, the preferred version is the Win98SE Setup (startup) disk. This is the disk originally provided for the Win98 CD and is the floppy created by a good working system.
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Thanks for the help wizard and everyone. I bought a new PC a week ago because I didn't want to wait any longer, so the old one is probably going to be a side-project that I'll pick at from time to time. I'll write back if I have any more questions in the future. Thanks again!
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MBRtool syntax
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