Sudden boot failure (SBF). Here's what happened...

1st: Booted up the computer and it got to the windows loading screen, then just rebooted over and over.

2nd: So, I checked all connections to the drives and memory were all seated correctly, and gave the battery a flick. Everything seemed ok.

3rd: I started the computer again in safe mode and it would hang on startup screen. Then I got some message about drive failure.

It seems that my bios setup doesn't detect any of my drives, except the a: drive.

I am now using the win98se boot disk, but I also have the cd. I chose 1. for hard-drive recovery, but (after reading the message) I rather not erase everything on my c: drive.

Any idea what or why this happened to my harddrive?

If BIOS cannot see your hard drives, neither will setup. If BIOS cannot see any drives your CD-ROM drive will not be readable either.

Are you actually looking at the BIOS setup screen? It's usually DEL of some other key noted at first on monitor. Try redetect devices in BIOS.

Best

Make sure the drive is detected by the Bios. If it is, download a diagnostic from the hard drive manufacturer's web site.

Sorry, I do not check for private messages

Yes I did all that, in setup it detects only the a:. The boot disk is able to detect my harddrive though. So what if the bios cant detect my drives is something wrong with some bios or boot file?

You have me kinda stumped. As far as I ever knew, the BIOS provides the data required to find and characterize each HDD, and if it don't you ain't got no HDD access.

"So what if the bios cant detect my drives is something wrong with some bios or boot file?"

BIOS has nothing to do with any OS or file, it should see even a blank (cleared) hard drive. You did try re-detect?

So when you boot with a floppy you can key in:
C:
and hit enter without error? Then key in:
DIR
and hit enter without error? See a WINDOWS folder listed?

Best
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