Is it possible to recover my data on HD? Here is what happened:

1. Installed updated drivers for Linksys Wireless PCMCIA card. Rebooted laptop.
2. Received error msg,"Error loading Explorer.exe; reinstall windows; file msvcrt.dll was not found"
3. Researched a fix on Microsoft's website to boot from Win98 bootable floppy and extract and replace msvcrt.dll file.
4. Inserted the WRONG floppy disk - a Emergency Repair Disk for WindowsNT - into laptop. The floppy contained the following files: autoexec.nt, config.nt, default._, ntuser.da_, sam._, security._, setup.txt, software._, system._
5. Now I get blank screen with blinking cursor at top left corner of screen.
6. When using Win98 bootable floppy - I finally found one - laptop can boot, can read contents of A drive and a RAMDrive created on D drive, but cannot access C drive, gets message "Invalid media type reading drive C" with Abort, Retry, Fail? below the message.
7. Tried using Fdisk/mbr with no effect, still cannot read or write to C drive.

What steps can I do to get back to booting into Win98 or back to step 2 above? The drive has not been backup in over a year. I need the data from it badly. I don't want to reformat the drive and reinstall Win98 if possible.

You will need a file recovery program. Two excellent ones are
Ontrack's 'Easy Recovery Pro' (http://www.ontrack.com) and PowerQuest's 'Lost and Found' (http://www.powerquest.com)
There are a couple of free ones around that I have never tried. Maybe someone else can help with that.

You then need to remove the drive and attach it to another system as a slave, to do the recovery.

Make sure the HD is properly identified in cmos/bios setup.

The 'invalid media type. . . ' message usually means the drive is partitioned but not formatted. But just reformatting it won't get the data back. You'll be left with a blank, but now usuable, drive.

It's hard to tell if it's due to the original problem or booting with the NT disk--although I doubt the NT disk would have made any changes on it's own.

After booting from the 98 bootdisk, type:

fdisk

and enter at the a:\> prompt. Y to large disk support if asked, then option 4. Exactly what does it say?

DAVEINCAPS has the first step .. do that.

If fdisk does not show your partition but does run ok, the partition table may be corrupted. MBRwork can usually fix this problem :

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/utilities.html

You have to put mbrwork.exe on your Win98se startup boot floppy, then run it from the A:\> prompt. It's a little trick to run it but not as trick as testdisk.

Best

OK, I've downloaded the MBRWork application. The zero track (?) reads as follows:
80 1 1 0 c 254 63 524 63 8450127

The other tracks (1,2,3) have zeros.
There is only one drive in the laptop, a 4GB drive.

Which option do I use in MBRwork to fix my problem? Options are:

Backup first track
Reset MBR to zero
Set a partition active
Capture Sectors
Transfer Sectors
Reset EMBR area to zero
Install standard MBR code
Edit Partition Entry
Restore Sectors
Compare Sectors

I'm not familiar with that software but maybe 'restore sectors'? Were there any help files included with it? Maybe jubalsams will post back.