missing command.com/lost hard drive

[doug]

I turned on my packard bell 100 mhz machine. when windows
started to load, the startup screen flashed, then
the line " type the name of the command interpreter"
appeared. If i use the win98 startup disk it will start, but
when i try to access my hard drive i get the message
"invalid media type reading drive C
any help would be greatly appreciated
Thanks, Doug

[Paleo Pete]

Let's hope we can solve this without formatting/reinstalling, but I have to admit it might be necessary...Not yet though, hang in there...

Boot to the win98 Start Up disk, and choose Command Prompt Only. At the A:\> prompt type:
fdisk_/mbr [Enter] using a space in place of the underscore ( _ ). This will rewrite the Master Boot Record. Reboot and try it.

If Windows won't load, boot to the Start Up disk again, command prompt only, and type:
sys_c: [Enter]
That will copy the system files to the drive and make it bootable. If that takes care of the error message, but Windows still won't load:

Start Up disk again, at the command prompt run scanreg:
scanreg_/fix will repair the registry, scanreg_/restore will replace it. Scanreg might not be necessary, depends on the results of the first two operations. Also, it won't help if you still have the invalid media type message, don't bother until you get rid of that error message.

Then get back to us, we'll go from there. The "invalid media type" message worries me, more often than not it means the drive will have to be formatted before the machine can read it. Sometimes it also means the drive is gone bye bye...

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Soon as I come up with all the answers...they change the questions!!

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