Booting to C:\ prompt

[Jim T]

Here's my system
Athlon 800 MHz
FIC AZ-11E Motherboard
Voodoo 3
Win98 SE
512 MB Ram

The system froze and when I rebooted it would not start up and kept asking for a start-up disk, so I inserted the start-up disk and after reading the read-me file ended up copying the system files using the sys c: command.

Now when it starts, the Windows 98 screen flashes and I end up with a C:\ prompt.

Any ideas on what went wrong or how I might fix it.

Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ski]

Press and hold the Ctrl key at startup, select 'Command Prompt Only' from the menu, press Enter, at the C:\> prompt type fdisk/status, press Enter. If you do not see the status of the C drive, then it's probably died.
If you see the status of the C drive, then insert the Windows boot disk, restart the computer, select "Start Windows w/o CD-ROM Support" from the menu, press Enter, at the A:\> prompt type C: and press Enter, at the C:\> prompt type fdisk /mbr, press Enter.

[Jim T]

Thanks Ski,
When I type in fdisk/status is says "bad command or file name"
Also I tried booting with the start-up disk in and it doesn't stap at the 'with cd-rom support" "without cd-rom support" screen, it just flashes the windows screen and goes to c:\ prompt

Is it hosed?

[david eaton]

Jim T. Is your bios set to allow booting from the floppy? Not unusual for this to be set up to only boot from the hard disk c: set the bios to allow booting from a: and try again. might help!


David

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Any system, however complicated, if looked at in exactly the right way, will become even more complicated.

[Jim T]

Yes, my sequence is floppy, HDD, CD-rom. Yet......
when I put my start-up disk in and boot it doesn't give me the "start with cd-rom support" etc screen.
When I put the same disk in my other system it does give me that screen. Maybe the floppy drive is hosed?????

[Jim T]

Ok, the latest.

I replaced the floppy drive.
Inserted start-up disk. It still does not read and boot from floppy.
Goes right to the c:\ prompt.
Disconnected hard drive. Does not boot from floppy. Says system error.
Reset bios to safe and minimal settings.
Still will not boot from floppy.
Is my Motherboard broke, how would I know?

[mjc]

Is the floppy light on all the time?

Try switching to CD first and putting in your windows disk...see it will boot to that.

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mjc
Links list:Computer Links (http://www.dreamwater.org/tech/mjc/index.htm)

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.

[ski]

A bad FD would not have caused the system to freeze.
Too many bad things happening at once.
Press and hold Ctrl key at startup, select "Command Prompt Only', press Enter, type fdisk /? and press Enter.
If you get a 'Bad Command...' response, then the motherboard may have died.
Only way to check it out is to swap out or take it to a shop for testing.