SG Broadband Community

On my kids computer, when the computer was booting, I got that message. The computer had a lot of trash on it, so I thought I'd clean it up. I used to have easy bios from Western Digital on it, but I thought the bios could handle the drive (8 gig). So I fdsk c, than format c. Could not for the life of me get the cd working to reinstall windows (old computer, lost startup). So I made a boot floppy from one of my new computers. Cleaned autoexec and config to load a generic cd driver. Seemed to work. Got to the drive, but when I hit dir, got the abort, retry, fail. I got totally fed up, I took the hard drive out of the computer, slaved it to my newer, and copied the windows cd to the old hd. Booted with the floppy, ran setup. Seemed to go all the way through windows setup, (I left it), and it must have restarted itself. Got the same invalid OS when I got back. What is the deal. Win 98 (is what I'm putting back on) can use fat32, can't it (when I formated it, used the option for that, I think.). Is the easy bios still there? (Don't see it on bootup, and in watching the boot, seems to see the entire disk). Started it up again with the boot disk, changed the directory to c:\windows, typed win. Said setup files were being updated, than got blue screen about VFAT component missing or something. HELP.

Thanks.

Phil

Bootup into the floppy again, type: sys c:
Then hit [enter]
Take the floppy out and reboot.

If that doesn't work, post back.

i love taht sys command

Hi.
Tried the sys c: Gave me system transfered. Rebooted, same thing. Tryed reinstalling windows from the hard drive again, (watched it this time), went all the way through the install, to the restart, then gave the invld os again. Any other suggestions?

Thanks

Phil

It sounds like the master boot record.
Try booting into the floppy again and type:

fdisk /mbr

Hit [enter]

Reboot

I'm assumming you are using a 98 bootdisk, and are installing 98. Do you recall saying 'yes' to make the partition "active". If not, use Fdisk to make the partition active as well.

I think ezbios makes a masterboot of it own, and that is what is causing you grief. If Fdisk can't fix the mbr, you may need to use a Dos debug script to clear the mbr.

Personally, since it's an older drive, I would run scandisk as well. Use the autofix, surface scan to find, and mark the bad sectors. It takes a long time, but worth the wait.

scandisk c: /autofix/surface

Start fresh with Fdisk, remove any partitions (non Dos ones first), create a new primary, reboot. Format c: /s right away.
Fdisk /mbr again.
You should be able to boot to a Dos prompt at this point, don't even bother installoing windows until yopu can boot to the C:> prompt.

Your the king. The fdisk/mbr fixed the problem. After that, works like a champ. When I fdisk the first time, I removed all the partitions, but I don't think I created a primary, if you do that in fdisk. Ran scandisk before, no problems. Thanks a lot for the help, you kept many patches of hair on my head from getting pulled out. When you do fdisk, and format c, does that create a mbr? Thanks again.

Phil

It was the mbr, I thought so. Fdisk will usually repair a damaged mbr when it used, but if Fdisk finds the mbr in good working order, it leaves it alone. I believe the ezbios app writes to the mbr to do it's work, and Fdisk sees it as ok so doesn't repair it unless the /mbr option is used.

Glad you're up and running, and you're very welcome.

Norm