[hristobg]

Hi, it is me again.

I really messed up one old PC and I don't know how to fix it. Okay, I'll tell you the whole story.

The PC came with Windows 98 installed, it's not new and the floppy device doesn't work.
It has HDD of 6 GB, 256 MB RAM, 128MB VRAM I believe, the videocard is unknown and the CPU is some Intel Pentium 333 MHz.

Are you following me? Okay. A wild thought came to me to try to install Windows XP. Everything seemed it would work, because
Windows XP covered atleast all minimum requirements. BUT then at the middle of the installation, it said there is no more space
and it will turn off. It turned off and that was all. On the boot there was two OS choises - Windows 98 was damaged somehow and
Windows XP wasn't installed fully.

I am an idiot.

Well, the thing I did next was to insert some Windows 98 bootable disk (pirated, don't judge me) and then I tried installing it agian.
I failed.
Well, atleast I got access to the DR-DOS and I knew some basic stuff. So I tried to format the C:\ drive. Everything went succesful.
And after that, I tried to put the Win 98 CD and there was some errors:

"largest executable program size 442,368", or something like that;

Actually, I tried everything I knew and still failed. There were many errors, but I couldn't remember them all.
I tried to copy all the files from D:\WIN98 to C:\WIN98, but it said only 1 file was copied, I cd-ed the C:\WIN98 folder and there
was nothing.

Then I connected the hard disk to this PC from which I'm writing to you now and formatted it. I tried with FAT32 and NTFS system.
After putting it back to the old PC and opened it in DOS mode, it said there are 0 bytes used and 0 bytes free. Where did these 6 GB go?!

I repeated the previous steps, connected the HDD to my PC, formatted, etc... nothing was succesful.
And now even it can't read the CD, I don't know why. It says: INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER or something like that.

Sometimes it gives me errors like BOOTMGR is missing, NTLDR is missing, etc.

I have some questions for you, guys.

• FAT32 or NTFS for Windows 98 installation?
• Can I install Windows 98 through USB on my PC without messing up the other HDD?
• Can I find somewhere the windows files, put them in the HDD, put the HDD back in the old PC and "yahoo! I'm done!" ?
• Can I format totally my HDD (I actually don't know if it is totally cleaned), install a clean Windows 98 in it?
• Is it something to do with BIOS? btw, I should of mention that when the CD boots, it says something Caldera DR-DOS.

Please, answer me. And sorry for my English, guys. Hope you understood me well.

[Wolf68k]

Try getting a copy of KillDisk installed on a CD.
Boot from that and notice a few things before you let it run; what it reads the capacity and how much is actually on it. Just take notes of that for grins. Now let KillDisk wipe the drive clean.
Try doing the 98 or XP install again.

1. Windows is FAT (aka FAT16) or FAT32. NTSF is for Win NT, 2000, XP, Vista, 7 and others.
2. You mean have 98 cd as a USB stick and install from that? No idea but doubtful. 98 (nonSE) needed drivers just to see a simple USB drive/stick, SE I think didn't need it for something that simple but I would be wrong.
3. Doubt it. You could try installing 98 on another system and then move it back to the old system after it's done it's first desktop boot, thus a sign that the install process is really done
4. Yes, you should be able to...hence my KillDisk suggestion because it sounds like the files on there might already be fubar.
5. BIOS won't help this. Only thing effected with the BIOS here would be the boot order.

[hristobg]

Thank you, I'm going to do this and will post results later.

[Slamman]

I just grabbed some discarded HDDs in a stock of computer parts someone was throwing out, when I picked up the T series eMachine I mentioned at the time, the lowliest HDDs were around 1 to 2GB, you will need JUST OVER 2GB to get XP to install, if it installs as a fresh format (delete the old OS Win files) (use Quick Format option to NTFS) seems Windows would automatically format onto the 2GB HDD smaller then expected, but when I ran compression upon booting and entering My Computer, it actually wound up hogging MORE space!
My idea was to get XP as a booting OS on a CF card, but that is limited to 2 to 4GB with what I have. It IS possible, keep at it.

You should expect just over 2GB for XP, much, much less with Windows 98 or ME even

[Wolf68k]

@Slamman
You really had to go through all of that just say "XP needs 2GB of space?"
Yes the specs according to Microsoft say 1.5GB but 2GB would be a better minimum. And yes he has a big enough HDD but apparently it's having issues, which could be because when it tried to install it might have tried to do a dual boot type of thing. Who knows. Doesn't matter.

[Slamman]

I'm saying I did it, what my results were, and yes, you'd have to ditch Win 9x to get XP on it! hahaha

[Stinky12]

FAT 16 will limit only up to 2GB, for the full 6GB you will need to format it as FAT 32
Try wolf's method and if that don't work try this
You may need another computer to help you out.

1. Find on the web a copy of Windows 98 boot disk with Smart Drive*
2. Then you will create a bootable CD with the 98 boot disk you done in step 1
3. After that insert your bootable CD to your Win98 machine and start it up.
4. Select the choice where DOS will support CD drive with Smart Drive and wait for it to do its job
5. Head in to the MS partition utility by typing in Fdisk
6. Delete all partitions by selecting the proper choices
7. When done, still in Fdisk, you will now create a new primary partition (make sure to set it as active) and restart when finish
8. Back into DOS with CD support w/smart drive, you will now format your HDD, you all also need to add the command.com file by adding the /S switch
9. When format is complete, still in DOS, go into your C:\ and create a Win98 folder, when done go back to the previous prompt drive letter
10. Type in the this command copy x:\Win98 *.* C:\Win98 or Xcopy X:\Win98 C:\Win98 /e
Where X= the letter of your CD ROM
11. After copy is complete, head into the C:\Win98 folder
12. Type setup, press enter, and Win98 should begin to install

* I believe the official Win98 don't come with Smart Drive, so you may have to look for 3rd party Win98 boot disk.
Without it, Win98 will copy each file one at a time and this will take forever
You can add Smart drive manually to a non Smart Drive Win98 boot disk, by editing the himem.sys file, but it's a PITA to get it to work.

[hristobg]

Okay, for now I followed Wolf68k's tips and there is a problem now.

So, I made a bootable USB with the help of KillDisk. Everything was succesful and I restarted the PC with the USB put in.
It started cleaning the D:\ drive or something and then, at the last pass it gave me this warning:

CODE

Warning: Verification error detected.

I ignored it and the setup continued. At its end, it gave me this info:

CODE

Erase method: US DoD 5220.22-M Passes: 3 Warning: Verifiction error detected. (D:) 6GB. Sect Warning: Verifiction error detected. (D:) 6GB. Sect Warning: Verifiction error detected. (D:) 6GB. Sect Warning: Verifiction error detected. (D:) 6GB. Sect

Then I pressed the ESC key to exit the installation. Next thing I did was to put the CD of Windows 98, it started booting up
and then another warning appeared.

CODE

Bad or missing file A:\DRDOS\SETVER.EXE C>

I haven't got access to any of the drivers, not even to the CD-ROM driver. Whatever I tried to type, it kept saying me

CODE

Bad or missing command interpreter. Please enter a valid filename (e.g. C:\COMMAND.COM) or just press the ENTER key.

What should I do now?

[Slamman]

I'm not familiar with Wolf's tech tip, but why don't you have a copy of Windows 98 on hand? They're fairly cheap if not free?
[I assume you do now, since I missed the bit about your Win98 disc in the middle of all that]

I have about three versions of Win 98 that I keep on file, and Windows ME as a restore disc, I make a restore on my original PC for whatever drive, and then swap it, most new drivers of the time are supported in ME, it's beneficial that way.
A restore on my eMachine with it's original WinME can work on any drive, it came with a 30GB HDD, but I've used even smaller drives to see what would happen
One thing you'll have to clear for us is what drive letter is associated with what, since we naturally assume it's the C drive as the HDD. (A as your floppy)


COMMAND prompt would be run from an MS DOS disk, if you made a Start Up floppy, it would have that content on it, and you'd boot that to get the COMMAND loaded to memory, Also a CD ROM driver if need be should be stored on a floppy
I still use Floppy disks as well

This post has been edited by Slamman on Monday, Apr 2 2012, 13:17

[hristobg]

Well, as I said in the first post, the floppy drive doesn't work, so this is not an option for me. There was some CDs but they're totally damaged now and can't even boot/run. About the drive letter: before it was usually C:\, but after using KillDisk it changed to D:\. And what if I don't have a floppy, there is no chance to fix the "command.com missing" error?

Here I found a text file with information from the previous post.

CODE

---------------------------- Erase Session ------------------------------------- Active@ KILLDISK started at: Mon Apr  2 14:46:12 2012     Target:  NO NAME (D:) 6.00GB     S/N: A0A7-CE3B     Located on: WDC (81h)     Erase method: US DoD 5220.22-M   Passes:3     Warning: Verification error detected. NO NAME (D:) 6.00GB, Sector 9316611     Warning: Verification error detected. NO NAME (D:) 6.00GB, Sector 9316611     Warning: Verification error detected. NO NAME (D:) 6.00GB, Sector 9316611     Warning: Verification error detected. NO NAME (D:) 6.00GB, Sector 9316611     Verification:40% (completed successfully)     Time taken: 00:37:06 Total number of erased device(s), partition(s): 1

This post has been edited by hristobg on Monday, Apr 2 2012, 13:21

[Slamman]

If the floppy doesn't work, time to replace it! haha Again, just saying as someone who scavanges computer parts, they are a literal dime a dozen this day in age. Should be able to get one.
If the drive is suspected, but the cable is an unknown, perhaps just a connection from mobo to drive is at fault? Worth also keeping extra IDEs on hand

For my laptop with option PW locked BIOS, I required a USB floppy for that to be remedied, I bought one from a computer parts store, the Box Shop here.
That was an IBM brand, and no driver needed to make it work, I think Teac is the actual drive maker, but the heart of the confusion is referencing drive A in the above, assuming that's the floppy disk drive, and is there media in there? USB or any card reading device can work in substitution, but not as well as a standard legacy drive for something so old.

Scratched OS discs are a bitch, I know I've had more then one!
Mike/PCGuytech offered me a software solution that is supposed to clean up the content while making a backup, stored to HDD for replicating on a blank disc I believe, I have to admit, I threw in the towel, I felt the disk was too damaged, it was an XP Pro and now I just use Dell's restore discs, there are plenty of those for XP at good prices!

You can make a StartUp disk on something that Windows will allow or once you have a floppy, if it's of course, possible to use the floppy, move those files to another device. Zip disks work much like floppy disks do, but do tend to need a driver, for the most part, unless your BIOS is supporting ZIP boot and other boot media, normally you can verify that, but what I'm not sure about is why it's needing to be erased?

There is an ERASER program under that simplified name, I have it but never put it to task, again, kinda funny, but I keep software tools on hand, and plenty of flash cards, a USB drive here and there, I know they are a life-saver!

This post has been edited by Slamman on Monday, Apr 2 2012, 13:41

[hristobg]

The problem is that the actual flopppy device doesn't work. And I don't live next to a PC Service. It's like 120 km from here. ;D Anyway, I kinda did go to the off-topic...

EDIT: I connected the HDD that I "KillDisk"-ed before and now I can't see it through Windows Explorer or compmgmt.msc.

This post has been edited by hristobg on Monday, Apr 2 2012, 13:39

[Slamman]

I'm not familiar with the program so Wolf will have to weigh in, as he's used it I imagine, but if it's not showing up in the BIOS, that's a bigger problem, I have PW protected laptop drives that are designed to hide themselves after a failing password is given!
They will literally not show up to the BIOS, but as long as you see BIOS detecting the connected drives, it should be an easier resolve

[hristobg]

Looks like the cables were wrong put, the HDD can be seen now. But no matter that, the most importat problem is still unfixed.

[Slamman]

Well, I've yet to have an OS boot from a thumb drive. My problem is not quite similar, I have bought a SATA to PATA module bay for my Dell laptop, I put a used PS3 HDD in that, I formatted it with Windows 8, and it worked as a swap from one computer to another, BUT the trick is formatting on that Dell laptop, to use the module bay, I have to pull out the ODD, Optical Disc Drive, which boots all the OS discs normally!

If you can resort to eBay, pick up a replacement OS disk or cheapie floppy. I know working on something THAT old, you don't want to be investing money into it, but it seems you don't have a lot of recourse. It pays to keep an eye out for these old computers if they can help solve a tech issue, I do some experimenting on mine, as i mentioned. You should do that before you lose something vital, make sure a technique works without data loss.

Sorry I can't help you more at present. I'd have just formatted over the old if it was not needing to be saved, I have several XP discs, thanks to a friend on Techspot who sent me what he had.

This post has been edited by Slamman on Monday, Apr 2 2012, 14:00

[hristobg]

A question just popped in my mind. What if I put all the files for the installation of Windows 98 in the HDD from the old PC and then, when I restart it, there will be no need to select CD-ROM or USB HDD to boot from, just the HDD in which I previously put the installation files.

[Slamman]

nLite is basically a tool moving the Install files to your HDD, then from that you can burn a custom Windows install OS disc, with some options you chose. It's really for XP though

If you can get the files in is the challenge, with limited drive options available, one method is to try Ethernet cable or parallel cable between machines, setting the printer cable in Windows or BIOS for Bi-Directional data

This post has been edited by Slamman on Monday, Apr 2 2012, 14:58

[hristobg]

Okay, I'm going to try it.

[Slamman]

I'm a bit stumped on what you have to work with, after toying with it for awhile! haha

Whatever that program is that is supposed to help burn a cleaned up copy of your installer OS disc, or any disc for that matter, I'll see if I can refresh my memory on the name of it, if the thread remains open, beforehand

[hristobg]

I found this: http://files.extremeoverclocking.com/file.php?f=196

I downloaded it, copied it to a bootable USB and everything went succesful for now. But the problem is that I can't use both CD-ROM and the other HDD, because the power cable and the cable from the motherboard are just one type and can't be used at one time for both devices. So I need another solution. When I boot the USB, it says that I need a CD in the CD-ROM driver. But I don't have one, as I said. So is it possible to keep these booting files in the USB and put somehow Windows 98 in there, too?

P.S. For the HDD I used "HDD Regenerator" which helped me of wrapping the HDD and creating the partitions.