HI. I'm not going to bug you folks anymore with this, if this question doesen't get me anywhere. this is a computer that belongs to my girlfriend, it started with a printer problem, and then it just wouldn't boot. the following is what it does instead of booting. I turn it on and it sit's on the win 98 logo screen for about four minutes and then pops up with this...c:\>rem tshoot:c\windows\a 4 init.exe below that it says sdram at bank # :0 below that it says sector not found reading drive c. when I turn it on it doesen't even look like it's checking the drives as they would usually lite up and I could hear all that being checked, also won't work in safe mode or boot with the win 98 se boot disk. ok that's it...any ideas greatly appreciated, she can't afford a new computer, and i'm not giving her mine LOL..thanks very much..charlie

orignal post Ok - if the boot disk doesn't work then either: a) you need to change the boot order in the BIOS so that a: is the first boot device b) your floppy drive is defective/has problems c) bad bootdisk - either test on a different machine or try another one If you can correct this issue, boot from the floppy & run a thorough scandisk to fix any errors on the c: drive that you'd reported earlier. Once the C: drive is error free, then work on any other problems. You should also be able to boot from the CD itself (if your CD is actually bootable) - same idea as before though, you need to change the boot order in the BIOS. I'm not entirely sure if you can run scandisk from the CD itself - I would think so.

at the win98 logo hit escape and see what boot page is behind it. see what the computer is hanging on. if you can, edit the autoexec.bat and remove the line you posted.

Do as suggested by jboy, and when you can boot from the bootdisk type in the following at the DOS-prompt: fdisk /mbr[Enter]key C:\Windows\Command\sys c:[Enter]key The first command is to fix/rearrange the Master Boot Record. The second command is to re-copy the system boot files to the root folder/directory. By doing this from the Windows\Command folder/directory one assures that the same version as the OS is re-copied to the root. To check whether or not there are any errors in Config.sys and/or Autoexec.bat during boot up, toggle the [F8]key as you did before to get to the Windows Startup Menu. From the Windows Startup Menu, choose the option of Step by Step confirmation or press the [Shift]+[F8]keys together. Press [Enter] to confirm each line that pass on screen. Also took a close look into the Bootlog.txt found in the root of C: to see if there are any errors in there. You need have no qualms about bugging us with the issue. We are here to help out at the best of our abilities. This ofcourse is no guarantee, that we can help you solve the problem but atleast we try too. Greetz from The Netherlands, The Count

Hi Count - if it's not the same version, likely 'sys' will abort with an 'incorrect DOS version' error. 'sys' may well do the trick, just felt that the HDD errors would be the first order of business. Definitely nothing can be done until the machine will boot. I hear some bad things about fdisk /mbr - never had occasion to use it myself.

Hey jboy, "...'sys' will abort with an 'incorrect DOS version' error." Would that be the case when one runs sys c: from the bootdisk with which one booted the system? Or are you referring to running sys c: from within the Windows\Command dir.? Maybe changing to the Ebd dir. first, cd\Windows\Command\Ebd from C:, and then running C:\Windows\Command\sys c: was a better thought. It wasn't my intention to bypass the fix of the HDD errors first. Although I've never looked at fdisk /mbr the way it's described in the article, I haven't encountered any difficulties with it in the past. Charlie, sorry for stealing a part of your thread. Greetz, The Count

The version error would occur only if sys is not the same version as what's booting the machine - which I gather is the reason for invoking sys from c:\windows\command rather than from a: Either way - no harm. Definitely don't want to mix versions. Without being able to boot up, repairs on the machine would be unlikely - unless the HDD was slaved to another machine, which might be a lot of needless effort. It's pretty much step 1 charlie. I mentioned my concerns over the /mbr switch mainly 'cause mesich didn't seem too keen on it (back in another post). I do see it recommended often - but that is not necessarily a ringing endorsement ; ) Thanks for your take on it Count.