Unique but simple Problem with Windows

[Ultrasonic]

Check this out guys: my friend had a dual boot machine with a hard drive partitioned into 3 partitions. One was for windows 98(c) the other was for winnt4 server(d) and the last one was for data. What happened was this: something got messed up with win98 and he decided to format c drive. As a result the ntldr program and everything else got deleted. When he starts up the computer now, it doesn't give the loader, nor a spash screen, it just says incorrect startup disk or something like that. He tried to install windows 98 back again on c drive--everything goes well right through the end of scandisk but after that, the whole system just hangs and he cant do anything about it. He tried it with various startup disks, and even other os(win 98se, winme) and it's still a no go. I appreciate any help you can offer me. Thank you.

 

[jyrixx]

load the startup disk, and run fdisk..
delete all the partitions and then repartition and format clean.
that should do the trick.

 

[Eigtball]

You don't have to delete your partitions. To get win98 to work, just use this fdisk switch

a:\fdisk /MBR

This will replace your Master Boot Record, and you will be in business with win98. I am not sure how to get your WinNT Server Loader backup, but you may just need to get somthing like system commander.

 

[KGB]

You do not need to delete your partitions.
Mr. Ball is correct about the fdisk /mbr. This will allow you to get back into Win98 and finish the install.
After 98 is in, boot to your NT CD and select the Repair option. This will get NTLDR back where it belongs.

 

[AKA]

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=27&threadid=349180

 

[Ultrasonic]

Thanks a lot for the help guys. I can't really fdisk and format everything because there is a lot of important data on drive. Let me call him up and convey all of this information. Thanks again!

 

[Ultrasonic]

oh year...A.K.A. can you please check your mail. Thanks!

 

[kt]

You are just going to rewrite the MBR of the HD.. no data is going to be lost.

-=kt