hey, I'm trying to fix my brothers [old] computer for him. his motherboard won't detect his HDD, so in order for it to pick it up i'm going to update the bios. however theres no floppy. for some reason mine has never worked (yes i've checked the cabling, the lights come on and everything but.. nothing). so i unplugged his floppy and put it in mine so i could make a bootdisk and it didnt work, and now seems to be permanently screwed, even in the older computer. so i've unpluggged my second hardrive that i use for music and plugged it into the older computer, and it recognises it with no problem, as well as the CD drive. so now that my floppy is screwed for unknown reasons, i've been trying to make a bootdisk without a floppy. i've downloaded the boot disk files from the net and burnt them to a cd, but the Boot Record is always "Not Found" from the cdrom. so i've come to the conclusion that before installing an OS i need to install some form of DOS? but from all my searching on the net it seems impossible to install DOS without a floppy... can anyone help? i just need to update the bios, so it recognises his harddrive, and install windows. oh and btw, i have no windows cd, my computer i bought never came with the cd, and my brother doesnt own one either. oh and usb is out of the question, its an old SiS m747 board from 1998. thanks in advance!

[1] You may as well get a usable FD. [2] You don't make a FD or CD bootable by 'putting files on it'. For CD, you burn a bootable image. For FD you format /s a:. [3] Instead of a BIOS upgrade you might consider a controller card. [4] Hard to install windoes without a windows CD. ===================================== If at first you don't succeed, you're about average. M2

"... so i've unpluggged my second hardrive that i use for music and plugged it into the older computer, and it recognises it with no problem, as well as the CD drive." This signifies that the HDD controller(s) are operational. It's a good possibility that the FDD controller is good as well. You can purchase a floppy drive (or three) for a few dollars each. That's the route I would go. If the machine has floppy capabilities, use them. "... so i've come to the conclusion that before installing an OS i need to install some form of DOS?" Not unless you're installing Windows 3.xx. Other than that, it's a waste of time, effort, and drive space. It's a good day when you learn something

Hi Dan, Thought we'd lost you. ===================================== If at first you don't succeed, you're about average. M2

Hi M2G. I've been "lost" in some family (estate) matters which took a month out of my help forum(s) visits. I've as well been busy improving my home recording studio. I always come back to Computing.net. It's like "home". However, by the time I get here, most posts have already been resolved, so there's no need to post. This is a fast forum, with a lot of the regular heavyweights "living" here on line it seems. (Heh, I used to as well. I'd be here every fifteen to twenty minutes looking for new posts/thread updates.) Plus the regulars are spread out over the globe (yourself, Derek (UK), etc) so almost all time zones cover the action. jboy and I are in the same zone, so he's (or numerous other regulars) have already responded by the time I get here. It's a good day when you learn something

@ sektor, Consider what you wrote: "his motherboard won't detect his HDD" "i've unpluggged my second hardrive that i use for music and plugged it into the older computer, and it recognises it with no problem" That would seem to indicate that there's nothing wrong with his board or IDE controller & the problem is *probably* with the HDD. In other words, it's unlikely a BIOS update is gonna "fix" anything. Did you try his HDD in your system to see if it's recognized? "btw, i have no windows cd, my computer i bought never came with the cd, and my brother doesnt own one either" So what did you plan on doing without a Windows CD? Have you considered Linux? Most distros are free & there are many that work very well with old hardware. http://www.puppylinux.org/user/view...

http://www.windows98.windowsreinsta... though obviously a W98SE Bootable CD would be of some help !!