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Im having a problem reinstalling win98 SE on my comp. I formatted the HDD and FDisked it. When i insert the Win98 SE and begin installing after a few mins it asks to be restarted like it plans. When it restarts the CD drives asks me if i want to startup usuing the CD Drive of HDD, when i click start with CD support the whole process begins again in this never ending loop. When i click start with HDD, it gives me an ever like connot find user.exe must reinstall W98.Can anyone help me out?
Sounds to me like that when you restart the machine you ARE NOT REMOVING the CD and or floppy.
the restart must restart on the HD.
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Maybe the overlapping installation attempts are causing a problem. Reformat the drive. Then boot with the 98 cd (I assume you'd been doing it that way since the boot option message was coming up). Install windows. When it reboots and asks which device to boot from, choose the hard drive and not the cdrom.
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I formatted again, when i was installing it i let it do its thing. Then when it asked to restart after the restart i chose boot from HDD. Then it says "Windows is now starting up for the first time" on the windows screen. After that it goes to dos and says "cannot find user.exe must reinstall windows." The thing that bugs me is when you do a fresh install your not supposed to get the screen that tells you to boot from HDD or from CD after the first reboot. I don't know why it popping up. Also whats the steps on copying the Win98 from dos to HDD. I can try that. Perhaps that works.
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There is /are tutorial links on this webpage, but here's the way I do it.
First, there is no need to do complete format, which takes a lot of time, if the hard drive is partitioned the way you want, and the hard drive simply has data on it.
Boot with your cd and type format C:/q
this just does a quick erase, and is very fast.
type C: and (ENTER)
type md win98 (ENTER)change to your cd drive:
type X (ENTER) where X is your cd drive letter.
type copy X\win98 *.* C:\win98
when all the files are copied,
type C: (ENTER)
type cd win98 (ENTER)
type setup (ENTER)
make sure that when you are asked, you REMOVE any floppy disks and or CD's and then restart.
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I think as long as the cdrom precedes the HD in the boot sequence, you'll get the boot from cd/boot from HD option whenever you have a bootable cd.
The user.exe message is almost certainly due to a hardware problem somewhere. I'd suspect RAM first as bad RAM can cause all kinds of odd problems.
But try the setup from the HD and see if that makes a difference.
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I ended up copying the Win98 CD to the HDD through Dos. When i was doing it, it was telling me its copying all these files to the C drive, when everything was done i typed Setup through C drive. It goes to setup and seems like its doing it through the CD drive again. i eject the CD, then it tells me please insert CD in the drive to continue. This got me mad its supposed to be installing through the C drive. So after it was installing i get the same loop problem. So i go back in dos and check whats on my C drive. I see the same files that were on it before it said it was copying. Anyone have some sort of solution?
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Disregard last post. Follow up.
I copied the files from the CD to my HDD through dos. When it was setting up and all it asks to restart with 22 mins remaining. when that was done it says "windows is now starting up for the first time" with the windows logo on screen. Then it goes to dos and says "cannot find user.exe you must reinstall windows." Same thing it did with the Win98SE CD. Only other problem i can think of is the CD is corrupt? Or am i missing something? i never had this problem before installing windows. Anyone got any other ideas?
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Just to reiterate what name said above:
Boot from the cd and choose to start the computer with cdrom support. At the a:\> prompt type:
format c:
and enter. When it's done and it's back at the a:\> prompt type:
md c:\win98
and enter. Then again at the a:\> prompt type:
copy d:\win98\*.* c:\win98
and enter. When it's done, at the a:\> prompt type:
c:\win98\setup
and enter. That should start the setup process and it shouldn't be trying to access the cdrom.
If it does then perhaps it's confused in that you originally booted from the cdrom. In that case I can send you a floppy bootdisk. Post back if you want it.
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DAVEINCAPS: i followed those instructions and it gives the the same option once i have to restart when it asks. If i remove the CD it tries to boot win98 for the first time and then says the user.exe error. If i leave the CD in it asks me to boot from CD or HDD. No other way around it. I have a i have a CDRW/DVD Drive and then a Reg CD Drive i try both drives and same result. The comp is pretty new 2.4 intel pasario, 512ram, 160GB HD. Originally came with EX but had an error and needed to reformat it to Win98SE and this is where i get these errors. Keeps posts comming if you have any ideas that may work.
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I'm going to email you a bootdisk. The file I send will be zipped so extract it with something like winzip. Then run (click on) the extracted file and it will create a bootdisk. Don't just copy the extracted file to a floppy disk as the file itself isn't bootable.
Then make sure a: is the first boot device in bios setup (F10) and boot your computer with it. At the a:\> prompt type:
fdisk
and enter. Y to large disk support and then option 4. Exactly what does it say?
Unless your 160 gig drive is connected to an add-on controller card, 98 won't correctly see a partition larger than about 127 gig. That may be at least part of the problem
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Ok i made the boot disk and Fdisk it. When i go to option 4 whis is what it displays.
Partition: c:1.
Status: A.
Type: Pri Dos.
Volume Lable: H (random letter i typed).
Mbytes: 15262.
System: 5Fat32.
Usuage: 100.
Total disk space: 15262.
Hope any of this helped.
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It shows your total disk space to be 15 gig and I'm not sure what the '5fat32' means. The fdisk I sent is the updated version which is needed for drives larger than 64 gig so I think it's working OK.
I assume you originally partitioned it with the installation disk that came with the drive.
I've never set up a drive that large but at the very least I think you should repartition it so that neither partition is larger than 127 gig. For example you could make the primary parititon 100 gig and then the extended partition would be 60 gig.
Try removing the partition you've got with option 3 in fdisk. Then reboot with the bootdisk and run fdisk again. Y to large disk support and then option 1 to create the partitions. When it asks if you want to use the entire space say No and then size the partition to what you want as long as it's less than 127 gig. Give it some leeway, say no more than 120 gig.
I'm assuming your bios is able to see the entire drive and that repartitioning will show the correct size. You may want to check compaq's site for your model and see if it gives info on max drive size.
If fdisk doesn't work try using the disk that came with the drive.
After you've repartitioned it, run fdisk option 4 again and post back what it says so we can be sure it's seeing the entire drive this time.
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Ok i Fdisk it and i set the primary to hold 10000 Mbytes. So i figured i would set up a extended partition for the rest. When i was setting the extended it told me max would be 14626 Mbytes. Dunno if i did it right but here how primary and extended looks like.
----PrimaryPartition: c:1.
Status: A.
Type: Pri Dos.
Volume
Mbytes: 10001
System: Unknown
Usuage: 7%-------Extended
Partition: c:1.
Status: A.
Type: Extended Dos.
Volume
Mbytes: 14626.
System: Unknown
Usuage: 93%I havent tried to install windows yet, becuase im not sure if this is what it should look like. Let me know. Thanks
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You're off by a decimal place. The primary partition of 10,001 mbytes is equivalent to 10 gig, not 100 gig. Fdisk is reporting that the 10 gig is 7% of total space which is about right for a 160 gig drive.
The extended partition of 14626 should probably be about 146260 mbytes--146 gig. So fdisk isn't reporting that size correctly but that may be because it's over the 127 gig cap.
Run fdisk again and delete those partitions. Then recreate them. This time enter 100000 for the size of the primary partition. That's equivalent to 100 gig. You could also enter a percentage (instead of a mbyte figure) as a disk size. If you entered 70% that would be about 100 gig.
When you create the secondary partition is should show close to 60 gig or 60000 mbytes.
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Once you get the primary partition of about 100 gig created you need to create the extended partition. This time use all the remaining space--about 60 gig.
Then you have to create a logical drive in the extended partition in order to use it. You can do all this with the fdisk options.
Once the primary and extended partitions and the virtual drive in the extended partition are created reboot again with the bootdisk. At the a:\> prompt type:
format c:
and enter. When it's done type:
format d:
and enter. When it's done you can attempt another installation of windows. Your cdrom will be E:
I'll check back later.
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Ok, when i try and set the partition to hold 100gig it won't let me. The monst it will hold is 99,999Mbytes. Don't know why that is but it just won't let me. So what i did was set the primary to 80,000 thinking it was 80gig, and the extended to 80,000. After that i tried to reinstall win98. And i get the same user.exe prob after reset. Perhaps the comp was meant to be run under WinXP? I don't have a WinXP but would it really make a difference if i go out and get one? I never ran into a problem like this before formatting a HDD. Its really starting to bother me why its not fully installing after the first reset like it supposed to.
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I don't know what's going on either. I had hoped it was the large partition that was causing the problem but I guess that's not it.
Unless it's a physical problem with the HD, XP should install easier. In your #12 post above you mention it originally came with EX. I'm not sure what you mean by that. Also, it is a compaq and although I don't think installing 98 on it should be a problem, with a compaq you never know. I know they have discussion sites and you may want to post there to see if there's any reason 98 won't install on your computer.
The only other thing I can think of is a problem with the RAM. Bad RAM can cause all kinds of weird problems. If possible remove some of it or swap it out.
If that doesn't help you might want to start a new thread here to get more exposure to the problem. Make sure the specs show the 2.4 mhz speed and 512 RAM. Mention you have a 160 gig HD configured as 80/80 but on the first reboot when installing windows you get a 'cannot find user.exe' error. You might want to refer to this thread to show what's been going on.
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