[PinkAngelDarlin]

i have an old dimension xps dXXX...PII,233...drive 0 maxtor 90640d4-(pm)...Atapi cd-rom drive...L2 cache memory...stb velocity video...phoenix bios 4.0 release 6.0 4s45e box1.10a.0035.p13 bios versiona13...thats all i have...drives show and video is fine.idon't have the sound yet,mouse and keyboard are detected.but when i try a boot disk it says not system disk insert another disk and press any key.(someone took this computer apart and i put it back together,but the power supply was no good so i gave it another one and it had no hard disk and i gave it one where do i go from here now any thoughts would be appreciated greatly thanx....georgana

Edited by PinkAngelDarlin, 27 November 2007 - 02:30 PM.

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Howdy:

This "boot disk" you are referring to, is it a floppy or the cd?

Murray

[Murray S.]

Howdy:

This "boot disk" you are referring to, is it a floppy or the cd?

Murray

[PinkAngelDarlin]

A floppy ...I also have a win98 and a win98 cd too and both starup disks...
i know how to do something...maybe i'm missing something...explain if u will...thanx

Edited by PinkAngelDarlin, 26 November 2007 - 10:14 AM.

[Murray S.]

Okay. What happens when you try to boot from the floppy?

Did you go into BIOS (setup) and make sure the first boot device was set to the floppy drive?

Murray

[PinkAngelDarlin]

yes,first boot is A:...reads A: but says it's not a system disk....it was already that way,but i made sure...

Edited by PinkAngelDarlin, 26 November 2007 - 11:25 AM.

[Murray S.]

Okay.. Go to www.bootdisk.com

From there, download the files needed for a WinME boot floppy (better boot disk than 98)..

Once the file has downloaded, put a clean formatted floppy in your a: drive and double click the downloaded file to extract the boot files to the floppy.

Now, try that one.

Murray

[PinkAngelDarlin]

Problem could be too big of a hard drive (not sure size)but i enabled large disk space on hard drive (it has no os)Can i use a ddo from maxtor maybe to solve this ? thanx................................................................ (well i'm editing now to this reply)i tried fdisk without large disk support and that did not help either......

Edited by PinkAngelDarlin, 26 November 2007 - 05:58 PM.

[Murray S.]

Did you get the boot floppy I told you to get?

Murray

[PinkAngelDarlin]

i made boot disk winme...but i went to bios settings, advanced, then diskette options,then enable diskette and picked 1.44 and 5? something were together,was my only option,then on boot up i getfixed disk0:maxtor #####(pm),then adtapti cdrom:nec (space) cdrom(sm):28b then event log messages,enter setup to view then error o2b2 incorrect drive a type_run setup then i looked it up in dmi log it says pre boot error:keyboard not functional ????? Ialso noticed first boot is fixed disk Hard drive right? I did check on drives to to be sure where i had them and both are on seperate ide's but both are master....

Edited by PinkAngelDarlin, 26 November 2007 - 10:03 PM.

[Murray S.]

Right.. fixed disk is the hdd. I thought I told you to change the first boot device to the floppy drive!

If you are unsure of how to do these things, I strongly suggest you get someone to help that has a little knowledge about the BIOS. I am not saying this as a detriment to you.

Murray

[PinkAngelDarlin]

doesn't list a: as a removable drive only the fixed drive that's why i'm here.....this is an old comp.i'm sure it had win95 at one time....i really need this help...where do i get the help i need do you know which forum i should use?Doesn't show a: as a boot device shows 1st boot removable but under that elsewhere in bios shows to be fixed drive (hd), then 2nd boot device is listed hard drive 0,then 3rd device listed is cdrom, then 4th device listed is network something or other....help please

Edited by PinkAngelDarlin, 26 November 2007 - 10:44 PM.

[Murray S.]

Highlight the 4 boot option. Now, start clicking the page up or page down keys. Does anything shange?

Murray

[PinkAngelDarlin]

i finally got it to change ,but i get same error,i was wondering is there a way to use another comuter to copy the files i need on the hard drive to run setup and put , hd back in computer i'm trying to install windows on and let it boot from hard drive that way?since the hd is already formatted...

Edited by PinkAngelDarlin, 27 November 2007 - 01:17 PM.

[Murray S.]

If the hdd is already formatted, then change the boot order back to the cd drive first. Now, put your newest Win98 cd in the drive and reboot the system.

The newer Win98 cd's were self-installing and a boot floppy wasn't needed.

Of course, this is totally dependant on you have a retail Win98 cd and not one that has been copied or burned to a cd.

Murray

[PinkAngelDarlin]

i did what you said used win98,now it has error reading and writting to hd error,so i ran fdisk then when i went to run A:format c: it has an error bad command or file name that's crazy there.....

Edited by PinkAngelDarlin, 27 November 2007 - 02:07 PM.