Dear Computer Friends, I was given an 486 Pentium - S as a second computer to use for my MCSE classes I'm taking. I was able to load NT Server on this computer no problem. (At school we were running NetBEUI Protocol until we did the actual installation of a network card.) Everything here at was running fine until I tried to use the network card already install on this computer, there was apparently a conflict with the networking card already in. I re-seated the network card in another PCI expansion slot, turned on the computer and now I get Hard disk fail / Floppy disk fail. NO NT at all. When first turning it on I am able to get some start up: Trident TVGA BIOS v4.50G (P3BO1A) 1024K 32 Bit Bus DRAM VGA Mode Then it goes to the: System Configurations: CPU Type: Pentium-S Co-Processor: Installed CPU Clock: 100 MHz Base Memory: 640K Extended Memory: 15360K Cache Memory: 256K Diskette Drive A: 1.44M, 3.5 in. Diskette Drive B: None Pri Master Disk: Type 45, 104MB Pri Slave Disk: Type 45, 104MB Sec. Master Disk: Type 45, 104MB Sec. Slave Disk: Type 45, 104MB Display Type: EGA/VGA Serial Port(s): None Parallel Port(s): None Then the dreadful message: Disk Boot Failure Insert system Disk and press enter: There is no c: or a: nothing to boot off of or from, the only place I can get to is inside the set up. I believe after working into the very late hours of the evening / morning, (I work full time / single parent - 2 children / and tackling school) I've tried everything I think I my have messed up primarily the Pri. Master Disk, - down to the Sec. Slave Disk looking for a prompt to return or something to give the a: drive a chance to take hold and boot. I tried switching the A/C boot, doesn't work! Please any input would be greatly appreciated! Thanks, Donna

Hi, First of all, Take out any Network/Sound cards on the computer, They only seem to be complicating the matter. I'm not sure what size your hard-drive is or how many you have, but according to the info you provided, the hard-drive is in serious trouble. Re-boot the P.C and go into the BIOS, verify what the computer says about the Hard-drive/s and then change the boot-up to detect the A:\ drive only. Save the changes and re-boot with a boot-up disk in. If that doesn't work the only other solution I can think of would be to replace the hard-drive.

I suggest that you ask your MCSE instructor and some of your class mates about your problem. I'm sure they would love to tackle a real live problem. My MCSE instructor even lets us bring our computers in to class and use the repair as a sort of lab. But here are some things you can try: -does the computer allow you to use the "Last known good config" option -try using a repair disk in conjunction with your 3 boot floppies. -try reformatting and placing a 50MB FAT partition followed by the NTFS partition and install NT again (this will allow you to boot in dos to make changes to boot files if this happens again) -make sure the NIC is on the HCL list and that you are using a driver that is designed for NT. Hope this helps, sounds like its not your hardware though.

it might be worth checking in bios in case pnp os is selected as you may have caused musical chairs for device resources and the ide controller is left without. i don;t know about your pc but sometimes a pci slot shares resources with another card , so you fit one or the other but not both. you could even have bus mastering set as the slot you have just used. best thing is to take it out.