I mean Windows Will Not Boot. there is no working in safe mode because my computer stops loading before the safe mode option. Previously I had been able to enter DOS, but now I am unable to get a DOS prompt. The boot cycle stops after information on the IDE Controller, Serial Bus Controller and Display Controller.
It does recognize all drives and gives no error messages. It just stops booting after the information on the controllers and confronts me with a screen of information and a blinking nonresponsive cursor. Can anything be done?

"...It does recognize all drives and gives no error messages..."

... can you enter the bios ??

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/b...

... can you alter settings n save?

... is the date correct?

... if NOT it could be an old weak bios cmos battery that needs replacing.

... careful if its an ibm, just whipping it out can lead to an eeprom write to, also locking the harddrive, make sure you have bios password if set and do it quick.

... OK ya

Grrrr
wat do I know?
... got brain freeze

Try unplugging and replugging in the IDE cables

then the master and slave setting's

if you can change up the ram for another stick or remove all but one and try it in another slot and randomly try moving each around

Try unplugging from wall and while unplugged hold in the start button (to remove any stored power) then plug in and try to reboot

Try another Video card I assume its an older system so avaiability of an old card is quite cheap

Are their any "new" Bios beep's

To mavis07:
Yes, I can enter the Bios Settings window. Though I cannot alter the settings. The BIOS on this computer is Award BIOS.
The date and time are correct and in Bios I can actually watch the clock ticking off the seconds.
To Big E Pants:
This computer sat unplugged for some time, actually, for over a year so when I finally got it up and running (last night) I did take a little longer while it looked through the system but still froze in the boot sequence at the same spot.
I unplugged and replugged the IDE cables and the master slave settings, no effect.
This computer has only one stick of RAM, I moved it to a different slot, no effect.
I have no spare video cards.
On startup the computer emits one self-assured beep, no new bios beeps.

"Yes, I can enter the Bios Settings window. Though I cannot alter the settings."

What do you mean by "Though I cannot alter the settings"? Does your keyboard not work in the BIOS?

Don't post if you ate razor blades for breakfast!

To Rayburn: I can enter BIOS but cannot change any of the entries.
As an example, I can enter the BIOS Features Setup screen where Boot Virus Detection is marked as Enabled. I can highlight 'Enabled' with my keyboard but I cannot change it to Disabled.

"I can highlight 'Enabled' with my keyboard but I cannot change it to Disabled"

What keys has you tried? Page Up/Page Down? +/-? Enter?

"And that's the fishing line, because Sharkboy said so!"

To jam: I thought I'd hit every key on the keyboard, but your suggestion of page up/page fown allows me to change values in BIOS. Thank you!
But I'm not certain what values to change. It seems not necessarily a great idea idea to go changing things willy nilly...

Regarding changing bios entries; *Every* bios has the keys to use for navigation, selection of an entry, and making changes listed on each bios screen.

It's a good day when you learn something

Yeah, willy nilly changes in the BIOS are to be avoided which is probably why the manufacturer has downloadable copies of the mother board manual for you to become familar with so that you would KNOW which items to change and why. Do that.

After that, I would look into booting up with a floppy and possibly "sys"ing the hard disk so as to be able to boot from the hard drive. Before I "sys"ed anything though I would take a real good look around to see just what is in place and what is not. It's really a bad time for you to be learning DOS though, have you got a computer literate friend you might talk into helping out hands on? Do you remember exactly what happened to make it quit booting into Windows?

Lee

to melee5: This computer was actually put together by a friend who was a Microsoft Cert. technician, and who then promptly moved out of state. He was the one who put Win98 on, from his disc which I can only suppose moved out of state with him.
As for what happened to make it quit booting. I'd turned it on and everything was fine, left the room for about an hour, came back and the screen was black. So, nothing happened, as far as I know, Windows just decided to stop booting that day. As I said, at the time I could get to the pre-Windows boot up DOS prompt and had managed to transfer a few files from C to the floppy A drive, but was limited by the size of the floppy disc. I have the book DOS For Dummies (Which is appropriately titled in this case) so DOS is time consuming but not impenetrable. Anyway, I could never do anything in DOS that got Windows to boot so it's probably all a waste of time.

... I'd suggest you try this:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/221512

... as you cannot access dos tapping F8 key
@boot-up try using a boot-up floppy.

"...where Boot Virus Detection is marked as Enabled..."

... I would disable that !! ...strange as it may seem... had read in the past that had interfered with the boot process.

So from the floppy after booting type:

C: [press ENTER]
cd windows\command [ENTER]
scanreg /restore [ENTER]

... select a date when it was OK using arrow keys

... make sure its a nice early date

Grrrr
wat do I know?
... got brain freeze

I agree with mavis completely. Disable Boot Virus Detection and try a bootdisk. It might also be that your MBR got corrupted somehow. But if so, the Boot Virus Protection may have picked it up. But you never know. I've never enabled BVD so I don't know how it works. But just this past week I had to deal with a computer not booting (just a flashing cursor). It turned out that the MBR on the hard drive was corrupted. I had to boot with a disk utility CD and write the drive with zeros and start over with reinstalling the operating system. It took awhile, but it's fine now.

Don't post if you ate razor blades for breakfast!

Good deal Indy. You should get a 98 CD from ebay possibly so you don't have to throw the computer away if we can't sys it back to life.

Go to http://www.bootdisk.com and download the Win98 OEM Bootdisk file. Run it on the computer you are posting with and it will make a blank floppy into the bootdisk you need to boot the dead computer with.

Your DOS for dummies probably doesn't cover Fdisk /MBR switch which is what Rayburn used to get his going again. But it should cover the Sys command which can be done from the A:\ drive to the C:\ drive like so:
sys c:

At that point you should be able to boot the hard drive into DOS at least and perhaps Windows will just pop up too?

The way it died is troublesome but what mode of death isn't? It sounds like a possible underlying hardware issue. Which means we won't be booting Windows before that gets fixed what ever it was that happened while you were out of the room. It might be easier to just start over but for that you'll need an installation CD.

Lee

To mavis007: In BIOS I disabled Boot Virus Protection
Created a DOS boot disc and a Win boot disc using Active@ share ware.
The Active@ programs allowed me to scan my computers files. Yes, there they are. Oh, you want to FIX them? Sorry, the share ware doesn't do that.
BUT, booting with the DOS boot disc did allow me to get to a generally unresponsive DOS prompt that looked like this:
A:\>_ (Where the little horizontal line is the cursor)
Typed C: [ENTER]
Got: C:\>
Typed: cd windows\command
Got: CHDIR failed for "Windows\command"
Typed: cd windows/ command
Got: Syntax error
Typed: cdwindows\command
Got: Bad command or filename "cdwindows\command"
Typed: command/ scanreg
Got: Invalid Switch
Specified COMMAND search directory bad
Microsoft(R) Windows98
(c) Copyright Microsodt Corp. 1981-1998.
and the cursor changed to:
C>_
Typed cd windows\command
Got: invalid directory
SIGH
Oh well, at least it's recognizing that Windows exists!

To melee5: Downloaded the Windows98 bootdisk from bootdisk.com
Will burn it and give this another shot.
Thanks all of you for all your help.

To melee5: On attempting to create the bootable floppy from the boot98 WinInage Self Extractor file on a plug and play USB connected external Imation floppy disk drive I received the following message:
The current image format is not supported by the disk drive
So, I tried a drag and drop (even though I knew the program wouldn't create a viable boot disk if I did that, but I guess I'm getting frustrated and desperate) and I was told there wasn't enough space on the disk.
SIGH.

... try again type c: [press ENTER]

... type:

dir [ENTER]

... It might be E: or D: [ENTER]

... depends what the floppy has given drive letters to. After the "DIR" command if you can see "WINDOWS" listed that will be the DIRectory you'll need to navigate to,(do'nt forget the space)from where windows is listed is it C: D: E:

c: [ENTER]
cd WINDOWS [ENTER]
cd COMMAND [ENTER]

... CD= change DIRectory

... once inside the "command" DIRectory

scanreg /restore [ENTER]

"...BUT, booting with the DOS boot disc did allow me to ..."

... try again

... remember on the DIR [ENTER] look for windows 'listed '

... happy typing

... ya

(... space after CD )

Grrrr
wat do I know?
... got brain freeze

From the C: prompt I entered D: and I got
D:\WINDOWS>
If I enter DIR here I get a huge list of files blurring by, on pause I recognize many as Windows files.
So I entered cd COMMAND and I got
D:\WINDOWS\COMMAND>
BUT when I entered: scanreg/restore
I got: Bad command or filename "scanreg"
I suspect this is because I'm entering the secondary HD on the computer, which has Win95 installed on it. The Windows I'm looking at is most likely 95.
No other letter produces Windows, and I went up to G:
Oh, and when I typed SCANDISK I got:
This version of Microsoft Scandisk will work only with MS-DOS versions 5.0 and later.

Try to see if you can get into Windows by going to the prompt you said you were at. At the D:\Windows prompt, type WIN and press enter.

Don't post if you ate razor blades for breakfast!

..."indy357"...what does one see when one types DIR @ C: ??

... also try DIR /A [ENTER]

... the A/ "switch" should show All files(hidden etc)

... when one see's a space then one should type a space(bar)

Grrrr
wat do I know?
... got brain freeze

To Rayburn:
Typing WIN at the D:\WINDOWS prompt resulted in the following message:
Registry file was not found. Registry services may be inoperative for this session. XMS cache problem. Registry services may be inoperative this session. Cannot find a device file that may be needed to run Windows or a Windows application.
The Windows registry or SYSTEM.INI file refers to this device file, but the device file no longer exists.
If you deleted this file on purpose, try uninstalling the associated application using its uninstall or setup program.
If you still want ti use the application assaociated with this device file, try reinstalling that application to replace the missing file.
C:\WINDOWS\NETSCAPE\VTCPRAC.386
Press any key to continue
[So, I pressed a key ans got the same message but now at the end it read]
C:\WINDOWS\NETSCAPE/UNTSTIMD.EXE
Press any key to continue
[So I did, and I got the same message and this]
C:\WINDOWS\NETSCAPE\DIAL.386
Press any key to continue
[So I did and got a screen of complete gibberish of which these were the only intelligeable parts]
D:\WINDOWS\mputer. m32.vxd
[and later]
E/512 /P
[THEN, I ran a DIR command on C: and got a long list of files and gave the following command based on one of them]
C:\AUTOEXEC BAT
[Which netted this response]
Scanning memory - OK
Scanning Master Boot Records - OK
Scanning Boot Record - OK
[Then something about not being able to set values for compressed files, then]
C:\SET BLASTER=A 220 I5 D1H5 P330E620 T6
C:\SET CTCM=C:\WINDOWS
C:\SET SOUND=C:\PROGRA~1\CREATIVE\CTSND
C:\SET MIDI=SYNTH: 1 MAP:E MODE:0
C:\>
[Entering AUTOEXEC NAV achieved the same response]
To Mavis007: Typing DIR at the C prompt nets a list of 420 files and 60 directories, some obviously Windows files.
Typing DIR/A gets 434 files and 61 directories though I'd be hard pressed to tell you which are the files that are new to the DIR/A command.

If you type:

dir /w /a /p

and press enter (note the single space between dir /a and between the other / entries).

This will give you a screen full at a time displaying what is there; you press (the mythical) "any key" to go to the next screen full... The contents will be in 3 columns (usually)...

/w = display info a screen at a time; /p = pause and wait for the key press to proceed to next screen...

more about dos command sand specificaly the dir command:

http://www.computerhope.com/dirhlp.htm

http://www.computerhope.com/msdos.htm

http://www.jegsworks.com/Lessons/re...

http://www.stu.qmul.ac.uk/primer/pd...

http://www.easydos.com/dir.html

http://www.amset.info/windows/dospr...

"...Typed: cd windows/ command
Got: Syntax error
Typed: cdwindows\command
Got: Bad command or filename "cdwindows\command......"

... now try again with the spaces in the correct places!

C: [ENTER]
cd WINDOWS [ENTER]
cd COMMAND [ENTER]

scanreg /restore [ENTER]

... do'nt forget the space!

...OK ya

Grrrr
wat do I know?
... got brain freeze

IMO, I think your Windows installation is beyond repair. But try trvlr's and mavis's suggestions first. If you have important files to get off the PC, you can slave the HDD to another PC and get the files off. Then reinstall the drive, boot with a floppy and a Windows CD and format and reinstall.

Don't post if you ate razor blades for breakfast!

I'm inclined to agree that it may be past it... A repair install might allow you to salvage what's on there - as in not wipe/lose important personal/data files etc. But if considering even a repair (actually a re-install over the current one) first copy off all those important files - one way or another...

So your C: drive has 98 on it and won't boot--it doesn't even have the windows\command directory. Possibly the windows directory itself is gone.

Your D: drive has 95 on it, which you're not using. That's why scanreg/restore got 'bad command or file name'. I don't think 95 has scanreg.exe. Anyway, just ignore your D: drive. It's C: you need to fix.

Verify the data cable to C: is in good condition and tightly attached. Sometimes a bad or loose cable gives inconsistent access. Boot up with the 98 bootdisk. At the a:\> prompt type fdisk and enter. Answer Y to 'large disk support' and then option 4. Exactly what does it say?

To DAVEINCAPS:
I typed fdisk at the A:\> prompt and hit ENTER
It says: Bad Command or Filename - "fdisk"

This bootdisk contains the fdisk utility. Perhaps you should try it.

Don't post if you ate razor blades for breakfast!

It should be on the disk (or the ramdrive created by the disk) but if you get the 'bad command of file name' then I guess it's not.

You can try Rayburn's link or, if you've got another win 98 computer you can copy it from the c:\windows\command folder to the bootdisk. Or I can send you a bootdisk file that will have it.

There were some bootdisks provided with '95 and '98 CDs' seemed to depend a little on which type of CD you had - full retail or OEM etc.;and the version...

Most of them did not include Fdisk as readily available for use; you had to expand it from a cab folder on the floppy and copy it to the root of the floppy... "If" by chance you "were" in luck it might be there already...

http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

has all the M$ bootdisks; and variants of each... Possibly Rayburn's is from there - and he as linked/given you the one you need...

At least one at the above site for '95 will probably have Fdisk already expanded/included; and similarly with '98; and usually one goes for the '98SE variant regardless.