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Nothing seems to get my Compaq LTE 5100 to recognize that the CD drive is a boot drive. The need to use my CD drive to boot was brought about when, after trying to read a file from the CD drive (thus causing a crash), I restarted the computer to find that the boot sector was now invalid! I tried putting Linux, Windows 95, and DOS into the CD drive, and they all failed. The computer seems like it really wants to have a floppy disk, but it doesn't have a floppy drive, only a CD drive.
The computer, as I said, is a Compaq LTE 5100, Pentium processor, 90 Mhz, 8 Megabytes of RAM, and it runs (or should I say, ran) Windows 95.
Are there any ways to restore the operating system, or (more preferrably) fix the boot sector problem?
Your efforts so far are somehat bewildering, but if you want to repair the bootsector and restore the bootfiles for a specific operating system then you need to be able to boot from *something*
Either you would want to install a working CD or FDD, or else connect the HDD to another machine that is better equipped
btw - the mere act of reading (or failing to read) a CD disc should not have damaged your hard drive
Life is hard; it's harder if you're stupid. -John Wayne
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A couple of things come to mind. A computer of that vintage may not be capable of booting from a CD. Have you set the CD as the first Boot device in the BIOS. If there is no such option then you are out of luck.
If you have a regular Windows 95 CD, it is unlikely that it is a bootable disk. Windows 95 was meant to be installed after first booting from a floppy disk. However. most Linux CDs are bootable.
Also a computer of that age would have had a floppy drive at some time in the past. You are going to have to get a one if it wont boot from the CD. They a cheap, just a few dollars. You can download a boot disk form www.bootdisk.com
Stuart
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I'm with jboy and Stuart.
IIRR the LTE is a laptop. If so, there are plenty of aditional challenges.
Check BIOS to see if HD and CD are correctly reco'd.
Better do a search for that model number to see what it will take to rig a floppy.
Good luck.
M2
If at first you don't succeed, you're about average.
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Hmm, yes - sure is a bit of a relic and may not even have that option
A little research indicates that this is one of those "swappable drive" gizmos: "... comes with interchangeable CD-ROM and floppy disk drive modules"
(last item reviewed on that page)
Life is hard; it's harder if you're stupid. -John Wayne
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One idea I like is getting an adaptor to convert from the 50-pin connector on the hard drive I have (810MB, model number 213559-001) to standard 40-pin IDE. Does anybody know how this is to be done? P.S: there isn't a secondary power plug on this hard drive; it seems that the power flows through the pins too.
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Yes, that is how laptop-to-IDE adapters work - you plug power into the adapter.
Those are typically 44 pin - 50 pin is very often SCSI (something else again)
Life is hard; it's harder if you're stupid. -John Wayne
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I was thinking it was SCSI when I noticed it had the same number of pins as a Macintosh SCSI cord, but when I looked up the product description, it said it works under IDE. See for yourself:
http://www.c-techonline.com/product_info.php?cPath=8&products_id=566&osCsid=b6a64dbb8245be7f226f3cb8b49b4640
P.S.: No doubt the word "product" up there is highlighted, and maybe even in this very sentence, too. Lol.
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Sorry - can't seem to get your link working at the moment.
Might be some sort of proprietary (non standard) interface, especially considering its age. A 44 pin 2½" laptop drive is just IDE + power (40 + 4). The 50 pin SCSI interface does not include the power connector, doesn't sound like that would be it after all
If by 'highlighted' you mean double underlined in green - that is the onsite advertising (Intellitxt). Tend to forget it's there (well, actually I just block it with FireFox) - but that's another story
Life is hard; it's harder if you're stupid. -John Wayne
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Now listen here son,you probably have lost or damaged your operating system,you must go to a cybercafe and using win 95/98 make a diskette demmarrage /a start up diskette this has FDISK on it the tool for formatting hard drives.I suggest you clean your drive using the FORMAT C: command then replace your FAT win Filesystem using FDISK/MBR command then after this re install your operating system--remember this command is vital to reinstalling.
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Yes, folks, another "Dave The Snakes" classic.
Next tome I need to format a disk, I'llwhoop out my fdisk.
M2
If at first you don't succeed, you're about average.
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... hoo boy - Snake, if you can't follow the thread, don't post 'advice'
It may be time to pursue a different (or perhaps stronger) pharmaceutical option
Life is hard; it's harder if you're stupid. -John Wayne
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jboy,
I can't even spell phamara...
Gimme some of them yellow ones
M2
If at first you don't succeed, you're about average.
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Here's another probably effective URL:
"http://pinouts.ru/data/Ata50Internal_pinout.shtml"
You'll also want to look at the related links, because they state the pin settings for 44 and 40 devices.
My dad's friend said he had an adaptor of this type, and my dad also bid on some floppy drives that would work in the computer.
I think my best option would be to get an adaptor from 50-pin to standard IDE. That way, I could possibly attach it to my newer Windows XP, download Norton DiskDoctor or whatever it's called (even if it's a 30*n day trial). That's what my dad's been saying mostly. I would like to at least get the files I was working on off of there.
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Ok - that is an oddball one, for sure. It is basically an IDE, so if you can get the adapter you can actually work with the drive.
All you really need to do is to scan the drive for errors and restore the boot files for that specific OS - - normally a simple task, but without an alternate boot device on the original machine... not so much. As a slave device, that won't matter and you should be able to retrieve whatever.
Tune in tomorrow for further feats of pharmacological fancy from freewheeling Dave
According to the manufacturers, the green discs last up to 75 years, gold colored discs last up to 100 years and platinum colored discs last up to 200
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Yay! It works now! The floppy drive came in today, and I began shopping around online for free disk recovery whatever tools. The one I used that works is this:
http://www.cgsecurity.org/testdisk.html
I put it on my floppy disk formatted as a bootable DOS disk, ran it, and told it to find a bootable partition. It found one, so I set it to make that sector the primary boot. Then I told it to write the partition table. Now, it boots Windows 95! It boots with the branding of TestDisk on every entry, which isn't really too much of a collateral anyway. It lets people know what program to use when their hard drive messes up :)
After I got it to boot, I saved all that work I worked on onto a floppy disk (in case this opportunity goes away suddenly).
I just now finished running the windows utility ScanDisk. I hoped it would shed some light on why I am seemingly missing at least 100 megabytes, probably 200 megabytes. It says it is in user space, so I guess I'll add up megabytes later on.
I'm just glad it works again!
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Hi Joey,
Glad you got it going.
That testdisk looks like the hot tip.
M2
If at first you don't succeed, you're about average.
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