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Hi I have a real mess here so if I stumble please bear with me. I agreed to do a format and install Win95 back for my niece she can't survive missing her msn messenger. this is what she brought me Win95-4x86-16ram-3.2GB I have no idea what kind it is its flat like a VCR. Windows were on it but she couldn't get any websites or programs she tried to fix it herself lost a lot of stuff her Ms-Dos also she has no D drive the computer has 2 cd- roms in it, (my own stupidity) I manage to format the C drive thinking if eveything came off that windows would pick it up. I never noticed that when her computer starts it has somthing called EZ-Bios which it tells you to hold CTRL for screen and then it say's choose A: to boot or the next line C: to boot if I pick A it says it can't read A and C brings me back to invalid system disk insert press any key but nothing works. I can't get it to take me a prompt and no idea how to get CD 95 to work. Real sorry about this book but I'm totally lost. Thanks ever so much for reading, help greatly needed. Also she had it for 3 years and the old thing worrks pretty fast so it did work good before.
Start again & use this , then fdisk > reboot & format .
http://www.lurkhere.com/~nicefiles/index.html
Freeware .
WIPE OUT : as the name implies, this utility will absolutely WIPE your hard drive. For those times when an industrial strength cleaner is needed to remove any pesky files Fdisk may have left behind. A readme file is included in the zip file. WARNING...WIPE OUT will remove ALL data from the Hard Drive.-------------
http://www.computerhope.com/sfdisk3.htm
http://www.pcguide.com/proc/setup/hdd.htm
http://www.fdisk.com/fdisk/
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q255/8/67.ASP
http://www.compguystechweb.com/troubleshooting/fdisk/fdisk_scr.html
http://www.compguystechweb.com/troubleshooting/fdisk/index.html
http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/weendoggy/index.htm
http://www.hexff.com/win98_install.html
http://members.tripod.com/ramblingsoftheoran/tutorials/partition-complete.htm
http://home.pacbell.net/dbk4297/fdiskformat.html
http://fdisk.radified.com/
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Thanks Johnw when I do this will I be able to get the CD-rom drive back to run Windows. thanks. (the pest).
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You will need to be sure of two things.
1)The BIOS is NOT located on the hard drive(few are but if it is your all done)2)Have a Windows 95 boot disk made that has drivers on it for your CD rom. Most all will work but I just fixed one with an old 4x drive that a regular boot disk would not enable. I went to bootdisk.com and had to try 3 or 4 until I found one that would. You can check by booting with it(the boot disk) and then changing over from the A prompt to the CD drive. For example you see-
A:\
Type in D:
If it works, it should now look like
D:\
Type in
dir
and you should see all the files on the Windows disk. If not, it is the wrong drive letter or the CD drive is not working. If you DO see all the files you good to go.
Now type in -
setup
and the install should beginThe letter assigned to the drive in DOS mode will be bumped up one or two letters. In other words if it is now drive D, it may be E or F in DOS mode.
Jimi_l
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Me again Jim_l . scared to ask what do you mean by the hard drive being on the Bios when I checked the Bios in the setup where you hit the delete it has no D only A, C, or C, A,. and if it is the case was I the one that screwed up by formatting the C drive. When I did a dir in the A most of the files that are usually in C were in A directory. Thanks I would be lost without computing net people have been terrific with me.
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EZ BIOS is written to the hard drive (as I have just learned). But should not be the actual BIOS itself but rather some sort of utility for id'ing drives.
You are probably best of totally reformating the drive and starting over. Apparently the drive letters are messed up.
I would-
1)Look inside the PC and see who makes the drive
2)Go to their site and download their utility for checking and installing new drives. It should walk you through making floppy disk(s)to run the utility.
3)Use that utility, it should fix the drive letter thing and get it ready for the Windows install.
4)Install Windows using the above directions OR perhaps even the HD utility floppy disk(s) previously mentioned. Some will do this and others will not.
If you get stumped post back and I will find the download site for you.Jimi_l
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SuzieQ. Dont' fret about the bios. (basic input/output system). You have it a little backwards. "hard drive being on the Bios" should be 'some bios on the hard drive.' Some OEM (original equipment manufacturer)'s put some of the instructions on the hard drive in a seperate hidden partition instead of options built into the bios chip. They say it makes for a more stable system-folks can't mess with it and it makes it easier for the techs. ;)
EZ BIOS is a flash utility for upgrading the bios which is something you do not need to do.Hope this helps.........ck
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SuzieQ I have dealt with a few older "flat" desktop models myself. Don't let them scare you.
As for knowing what kind it is, that's easy. They all have some kind of markings. I know you probably think everyone wants to know what motherboard is in it or something. No. Just look at the front of it where it says something like DX/486. It should have a name or model name there and that would be a big help determining where the bios is situated on that model.
Example:
I have 3 old ones here. They are:
Compaq Prolinea A75
Compaq Prolinea A90
NEC100
You can find a picture of the A90 I had networked here: Terri's PC's.
I know that the Compaqs need to have the bios on the hard drive so I never format them, I just delete windows and all other pertinent information on them. The NEC can be formatted.
As for being able to boot from the cd rom. I'm sorry but a computer that old is not going to have cd rom booting as an option. I could be wrong but don't think I am.
The only way to get your cd rom to be bootable though is to use a floppy win98 boot disk in it and you said there was no floppy in this. That is the first thing you need to upgrade. From there the rest of it may work.
If I can be of any more help, please email me. I also have loads of the ram you need just laying around in these computers I am probably going to force myself to strip and put out for the trash. Maybe you can benifit from some of it. I even have floppy drives.
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I re-read the last posts and did not see where she had no floppy drive(which would be most unusual).
She wont be able to boot from the CD drive but should be able to switch to and run it with the right boot disk.Terri,
If you want to get rid of some of that older RAM let me know. Ma's PC could use a littleJimi_l
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Hi All,
EZ-Bios is a utility that is used by some to partition and format the hard drive or to duplicate the old hard drive to the new.
It's most common use is to allow older bios to recognize the newer, larger hard drives.
Better know to most as a Drive Overlay.It is part of utilities such as EZ-Drive and EZ-Copy along with the utilities provided by hard drive manufactures such as Maxtor's Max-Blast and Western Digital's EZ-Install.
EZ-Bios is actually written to sector 0 the Master Boot Record. They say is is easily removed however, I disagree. I have found that removal depends on the manufacture of the hard drive and the utility that was used.
If you can find out what hard drive you have it would make it alot easier to remove or determine if you need the overlay to see a larger hard drive.
When you bootup the computer and it display's the Primary Master you will see some letters and numbers next to it such as WD-200 along with the size of the drive.
Post back with Primary Master Type.
The size of the Drive.
The computer make/model as described by Terri.The bios is not stored there so it can be deleted unless you need the overlay.
As for the Compaq's that is a different animal. They put something on Sector 1 of the hard drive that allows you to access the bios. I have also fought with those.
Formatting the hard drive will remove the information and you will not be able to access the bios by pressing F10.
Compaq has a utility on there site that you can download to reinstall it thus allow the F10 option.Post back.
Mesich
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Hey again, I took the back off and I can't find anything that tells me a name I saw the word Panosonic and the small fan says I think Topower and a number SIS 85C471 along with some small ones I can't see, all the connections seem to be alright. Yes I have a floppy drive, 2 CD roms but no D drive when I inheirited it to fix it had window95 on it and many many other programs I could get to some utilities but not enough (I assumed she erased them) it had Ms-Dos from the start program, I formatted the C drive that worked but most of the system files were in A drive and some missing where I'm at now is this message when screen starting. Sorry its long also, it starts up and has DX4-S CPU at 100MHz does the memory test no problem then it says EZ-BIOS initializing- EZ-BIOS continuing hold CTRL for screen status or to boot from floppy- EZ-BIOS continuing startup. Invalid System Disk replace and press any key ( Does not work when I try it) and when I hold the CTRL key it comes up Choose A to boot from- choose C to boot from which they both bring me back to the Invalid System disk. Terri here is what is on the screen- CPU TYPE: DX4'S- COPROCESSOR INSTALLED- CPU CLOCK 100MHz- BASE MEMORY-640K- EXTENDED MEMORY-15360K-CACHE MEMORY 256K. DISKETTE A:-144mb,3.5in -DISKETTE B-NONE -HARDDISK USER TYPE 1549mb, - HARDDISKS D E F NONE. -DISPLAY EGA/VGA. - SERIAL PORTS-3F8-2F8. I hope this helps at all, I can't get past invalid disk. Thank you all for your time I'm grateful sorry about it being long again. The Pest
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OK Here's how to do it:
Go into your BIOS and set your boot sequence (or boot options\order) to A(floppy),C(Hard disk)...if you can set it to CDROM,A,C.
Exit and SAVE.
Download this
http://www.mirrors.org/archived_software/www.bootdisk.com/winfiles/boot98se.exe
and make a floppy...Once it's done put the floppy in (your nieces) computer when It's off. Then turn it on WITH the floppy in the floppy drive. Let it boot until it comes up with the menu asking if you want to boot from hard disk. SELECT "Boot from CD" OR "Boot from Floppy" NOT NOT NOT "boot from hard disk.
It should show another menu. SELECT "Start Computer WITH CD-ROM support." Then let it do its thing until you see the A:\> prompt. Type in D:. It should go to the D:\> prompt. THEN PUT IN YOUR WINDOWS 95 DISK IN THE FIRST CD-ROM DRIVE. then at the D:\> prompt type "setup" and press enter. It should start windows 95 setup. If not put in your Windows 95 disk in the other cdrom and try "setup" again.
If setup doesn't find Hard drive space or something; you may need to boot to A:\ prompt and type FDISK and make a partition.
Please let me know if this works
Hope this helps!
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OK Here's how to do it:
Go into your BIOS and set your boot sequence (or boot options\order) to A(floppy),C(Hard disk)...if you can set it to CDROM,A,C.
Exit and SAVE.
Download this
http://www.mirrors.org/archived_software/www.bootdisk.com/winfiles/boot98se.exe
and make a floppy...Once it's done put the floppy in (your nieces) computer when It's off. Then turn it on WITH the floppy in the floppy drive. Let it boot until it comes up with the menu asking if you want to boot from hard disk. SELECT "Boot from CD" OR "Boot from Floppy" NOT NOT NOT "boot from hard disk.
It should show another menu. SELECT "Start Computer WITH CD-ROM support." Then let it do its thing until you see the A:\> prompt. Type in D:. It should go to the D:\> prompt. THEN PUT IN YOUR WINDOWS 95 DISK IN THE FIRST CD-ROM DRIVE. then at the D:\> prompt type "setup" and press enter. It should start windows 95 setup. If not put in your Windows 95 disk in the other cdrom and try "setup" again.
If setup doesn't find Hard drive space or something; you may need to boot to A:\ prompt and type FDISK and make a partition.
Please let me know if this works
Hope this helps!
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KDog849, hope you don't mind me stepping on your toes a minute.
Using the win98 boot disk:
When you access the floppy boot disk choose to start it with cd rom support.
Now it should find 2 drives and install the drivers for them.
After this is will load a temporary ram drive to your system[creating a D drive].
This consequentally bumps your cd rom drives to drives: E & F.
Now as any good dos worker knows, dos usually reverses the cd rom drives.
So if you get this far, you will just have to try typing both of these commands and see what you get:E:\dir
if this one doesn't work, try:
F:\dirOne of these two should bring you up a directory of the folders contained on the windows 95 cd rom.
The last folder should be "win95".Once this folder is found:
switch back to the C drive.
Now type:
md win95Now switch back to the drive where you found the directory of the cd rom at.
Once you get there here is the command to type:
copy win95 c:\win95After the files have been copied You can type:
c:\win95\setup.exeThis should install windows 95 onto your computer.
Again sorry KDog for stepping on your toes, but I have done this so many times I could probably do it blinfolded in my sleep.P.S. I have 96mbs of EDO 72pin SIMM ram and a small bag of unmatch ram that will be hit the trash soon. Anyone interested in it, drop me a line.
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She needs to get the drive letters squared away first.
There MUST be a drive Mfg on the drive SOMEWHERE
Maxtor, Segate, IBM, DEC, Toshiba, Western Digital
to name a few. With this we can gather tools to prep the drive and THEN continue on to the install phase.If you don't know what a hard drive looks like have a peek here-
http://www.howstuffworks.com/gif/laptop-hard-drive.jpg
Jimi_l
BTW Terri, I e-mailed you about the RAM.
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i again the Harddrive is a Western Digital, Caviar 21600 - AT Compatible Intelligent drive. I've gotten so many good responsese now I'm not too sure of which one to follow or could I try them all, I'll wait to hear from you smart and patience people to tell me.
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Mesich's information is where you need to start I think. He is correct about the most common practice of EZ-Bios being used for older systems to allow larger hard drives. You need to get rid of the EZ-Bios and partitions first. You may need to go to the WD website and see if there is a utility for removing the EZ-Bios.
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Yes that's right , the older bios's require an overlay ( EZ ) to read a hard drive larger than approx. 512 mb .
Maybe EZ is still intact & has'nt been corrupted .
Are you putting in the boot disk ( with cd rom support ) & then starting up the comp ?
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Wow, hey she's only got a 486. It's not going to have a cmos option to change the boot sequence. It's going to be a: then c:
Formatting won't remove the bios overlay or a compaq setup-on-the-HD (since it's on a non-dos partition anyway. But this isn't a factor since it's not a compaq).
The hard drive model you give is a 1.6 gig but you originally said it's a 3.2. Let's hope that's a mistake and the drive isn't compressed.
You will need to keep the drive overlay (EZ-bios) on the drive or reinstall it else the computer will likely only see about 500 meg of it.
I think all you need to do is get a good bootdisk with cdrom support. Turn the computer on, let the ez bios option come up, choose to boot from a:, then put the floppy disk in and hit enter. You might want to do a 'format c:' before you reinstall the OS to make sure it's clean.
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Hi Johnw thing is it might be 1.6, I was only going by what she told me. I tried all the options and I get the same result hold CTRL key it doesn't matter if it A or C. I choose, same message Invalid System disk I can't get to anything at all can't get to Dos to command EZ-Bios is the only thing that comes up. Maybe I should just declare defeat, even though I didn't get it I certaintly learned a few thing about EZ-Bios. I wish I knew more details before I started it windows was on it and working but only in safe mode couldn't get out of it.I was led to believe it was a straight format and Win95 install which I had done many. I'll try the EZ-BIOS web site one more time to see if I can figure something out.Thanks
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http://support.wdc.com/download/dlg/dlginstall_10_0.exe
That link, IMHO, is where you need to start.
That download (DATA lifeguard v10) INCLUDES an EZ BIOS replacement and other management tools. It will also make a bootable floppy, assist in the format of the drive and aid you with the O/S install. It also will perform other tasks as well(like drive letter assignment I would assume).Jimi_l
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Well when I format I end up with:
C/D/E/F/G/H
I have my hard drive partitioned into 2 sections. Then I also have 3 cd rom drives so my cd rom drives are bumped up to E, F & G, and to boot they are always reversed.
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Goodday well for some people I tried everything I went and made a few disks from Western Digital unless I'm doing something wrong its a no go they want me to use Dos and I can't get to DOS only what I have been repeating. Is there a Utility that will erase everything so I can at least FDISK. I think I will have to find away to take out the EZ-BIOS to get anywhere. Thanks for,all the help."Sigh". (disgusted)
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You have to boot the machine with the floppy already in the drive. You cant put it in after.
If a regular boot disk will get you to an A:\ prompt then the WD floppies should work as well
Jimi_l
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I don't believe the regular bootdisk is working either, please correct me if I am wrong.
After downloading the .exe file from the link provided did you copy the file to the floppy or did you run the .exe and let it extract the files to the floppy?
The disk utility from Western Digital does have all of the system files necessary to boot the computer and should work whether you have EZ-Bios or not.
If it does not, then it is a hardware or bios issue. Check the data and power cable to the floppy and at the motherboard.
Mesich
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I had a problem with a PC like yours. I would suggest going in the bios auto detecting the hard disk then choose the LBA hard disk option make sure the boot is on A then C and save and exit the bios make sure your windows 98 start up floppy disk is in the drive when you reboot. At A:\> type fdisk then hit enter delete all partions then create a primary DOS partion, follow the prompts then reboot, at A:\> type format C: then hit enter when you get back to A:\> type scandisk C: then hit enter do a surface scan aswell. At A:\> type E: then hit enter at E:\> type setup.exe then hit enter.
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You can use a zero-fill utility to erase the hard drive but I don't think that's your problem. It's not going to do much good if you can't boot from the a: drive anyway. Assuming you have a good bootdisk, I'd agree with Mesich that you may have a hardware problem--probably a bad floppy drive.
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I'd like to know that too. It's much easier to have the operating system and programs on one partition, and personal data on another partition. That way if windows crashes you can safely format and recover from it without losing data.
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Terry, with my multi-boot setup I keep programs in their own partition, also. I have the same program(s) installed to several OS's. If I format one partition, I still have the programs installed to the other OS's. This saves me a lot of disk space, by not having MS Office (for example) installed in several different OS partitions. Data is on a separate partition from apps.
Dave
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It's a hassle to have more than one.
For a dual boot, install Win98 first then Win2000pro.
KDog849
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