[BoltM44]

So I assembled another computer with acquired parts: Machspeed P4MDPT motherboard with Phoenix - Award WorkstationBIOS, Socket 478 Intel Celeron 1.8 ghz CPU, Via P4M266A(CEP chipset 256 mb DDR200 memory module, Western Digital Protege 10 Gig hard drive, & Kybermedia CD-RW drive. The motherboard, CPU, & CD-RW are new out-of-the-box. The hard drive is VERY lightly used and was scavenged from another computer.

I booted up to Western Digital formatting disk with dianostic tools on it. I went through the formatting procedure and inserted a standard Win98SE startup disk when prompted to do so. The RAMDRIVE was created on D: and my CD drive became E:. So I put in the Win98SE install CD, swtiched to the E: drive and typed setup. Win98 went thru its familiar system check without incident, ran scandisk and started to copy/load files. Almost immediealy, I get the message "Error loading system.drv and I am retunred to the E: prompt.

Here is what I've done to resolve this. First I checked the memory module using a utility called "DocMemory". No errors detected after a number of "loops" through this program. That didn't resolve the problem. I also made sure I set the BIOS to standards defaults. That didn't work. I set the BIOS to optimized defaults. That didn't work. I tried copying the contents of the CD Win98 to the C: drive in a Win98 directory and running setup from C:. All the files copied OK but running setup from C: made no difference. Originally I tried all of this in the same computer except with a 40 gig WD Caviar hard drive with more use on it than the 10 gig drive I described above. But a surface scan of the 40 gig drive reported numerous errors so I decided to try the same configuration with the 10 gig WD drive with much less wear-n-tear on it. But it doesn't matter. I get the same message "Error loading system.drv with either hard drive. Curiously, I get the same error report running a surface scan on both drives. Not likely both are bad. Anti-Virus is disabled in the BIOS.

Any ideas????????

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Boot the PC, enter BIOS set up to change the boot order to CD ROM Drive then hard drive, load the 98SE CD, press F10 to save, type Y to cofirm, choose load from CD as it boots

It may want to format the drive, let it do that and when it reboots, press to load from the CD

You won't need to do this for any other reboots during the install

[Retired Tech]

Boot the PC, enter BIOS set up to change the boot order to CD ROM Drive then hard drive, load the 98SE CD, press F10 to save, type Y to cofirm, choose load from CD as it boots

It may want to format the drive, let it do that and when it reboots, press to load from the CD

You won't need to do this for any other reboots during the install

[BoltM44]

I tried that. Here are the results. Computer booted to CD with this message during the boot process "boot to CD:" then the Win98 screen flashes on the screen for an instant and I am returned to the C: promt. Above C: is "Microsoft ® Windows 98 (next line) Copyright Microsoft Corp 1981-1999. Nothing else. Nice try though. And thanks for the reply.

[Retired Tech]

Wipe the drive with this, in case it is picking up on files from before

To completely erase all data on the drive(s)

Download Boot and Nuke

Using Boot and Nuke

Use the autonuke option

Then it should go as in post 2

[BoltM44]

Well, I downloaded the software, created the the boot disk, and booted to it. I used the auonuke option and Now it running on the affected machine. On the screen I see a percentage thats increasing (current about 36%, round 1 of 1, pass two of three. Do I let this go to 100%? Then what, do I reboot and then change the boot order to boot from the CD ROM again? Or do I do something else?

[BoltM44]

I used Boot & Nuke to competely erase all residual data on the hard drive. I booted the computer to this program, selected the autonuke option and let the program run to its conclusion. Boot&Nuke reported that it succeeded, that all selected disks have been wiped. It prompted me to save a log file to A:\ which I did. Then it repeated the command without giving other options. I had no choice but to reboot. I went to the BIOS and changed to boot order to CD ROM first, then hard drive, then disabled. It would not boot to the CD ROM drive (Disk Boot Failure)so I rebooted to a standard Win98 sytem disk which reported "Windows has detected that C does not have a valid FAT or FAT32 partition". So I formatted the drive again using the WD disk, attempted to install Win98 again and received the same error I started with, "Error loading system.drv". Should I give up?

[Retired Tech]

Unless it is the CD ROM Drive