Trying to fix an old 486 (win95)

[mjquilly]

I'm trying to repair my mom's old 486, running win95. When powering on, the good old "Non-system disk or disk error, please insert a new disk and press enter" message comes up. I don't have a win95 bootdisk, but I tried a win98 bootdisk, and it booted up, but the C: drive could not be used (There is one 500MB disk in this PC). I then took the HDD out and put it in my PC, but it complained that the HDD was not ATAPI compatible. How can I go about fixing this?

 

[AMCRambler]

Boot it with the Windows 98 boot disk and then run fdisk.exe from the bootdisk. It should be on there. Then do display partition information. If you can see the hard disk there then all it needs is to have a partition setup on it. Once you have a partition you can format the disk and load an operating system. If you can't see the disk under partition information then either the disk is not hooked up correctly or it's toast and you need a new drive.

 

[mjquilly]

I'll check fdisk to see if I can see the drive, but I'd like to at least preserve some existing data if possible before re-installing.

 

[bacillus]

<< I'll check fdisk to see if I can see the drive, but I'd like to at least preserve some existing data if possible before re-installing. >>


first off does bios see the hdd?
if yes, suggest you boot up with the win98 startup disk & at the A: prompt type "fdisk /mbr" & press enter.
this will rewrite your master boot record without destroying any data.
after you've done the above, at the next A: prompt type "sys C:" & hit enter.
remove the floppy & reboot to see if you can get into widows.
if you get in do remember that a virus coud be at the root of your problems so take appropriate actions!

 

[E3Art]

what does rewriting the master boot record do for you ?

 

[fow99]

<< .... and it booted up, but the C: drive could not be used (There is one 500MB disk in this PC). >>



And what exactly was the problem?

 

[fow99]

<< what does rewriting the master boot record do for you ? >>



A lot of good things. mbr is a vital part of a harddisk. If that thing is broken, you can't do anything with the disk.

 

[miken]

MBR=Master Boot Record.

The MBR is basically an index of all the locations of every file you have on your drive.

Win98 boot disk

fdisk /mbr

reboot

fdisk

make sure that in fdisk your drive partition is there and active. If it's not, you will have to destroy or create a new partition.