Win 3.1 486SX won't boot

[Graynz]

A friends PC, ‘Digital’ brand / 486SX (25Mhz?) 1993, hardly used running Windows 3.1 Totally original, never upgraded in any way (one owner) . Fully working as original. Recent attempted clean install of Win 95b (using the original CD drive) failed. Don’t know why Win 95 failed, it got through 95% of the install and just came up with an obscure ‘Install failed, setup can not install windows’ type message. anyway, ... Windows 3.1 was then re-installed. Problem now, when rebooted at the prompt after (successful install) windows will not start. There is only a C:\> command prompt ........
I re-installed it again, no problems, mucked around with it for about 1 hour checking things(it doesn't recognise the CD)... but when I re-boot it. The SAME again, it says it has loaded windows but I'm just left with a C:\> prompt again. Any ideas (don’t know a lot about Win 3.1 issues)
anyone remember anything about these??? ...cheers

[jabarnutcase]

Have you tried typing WIN (Enter) at the c prompt? If Windows is there, it should at least get you in.
Been a long time.....Others will have ideas.

BTW....Welcome to forms!

[pave_spectre]

If that works you can add the coomand win to the autoexec.bat file so that it runs automatically at boot.

[jabarnutcase]

Ah- Yes. The good ol' autoexec.bat!....The memories!

[Paul Komski]

Did you go back and reinstall DOS first and then run Win3.1 from it's own setup.exe?

As with many OSes, but particularly Win95 from CD or Floppies, running its setup from the HDD is often more successful (and faster).

[Whyzman]

Hey there jabar, if you're copy pasting the PC Guide Forums Welcome...you might want to check the spelling of "Forums" on your original...

If you're entering things in manually u need to remember u need to put a u in the form...

PS See Sig...

[jabarnutcase]

Yikes! yo're right!

I'm in rare forum today.

Yep....Old age for sure. Nice to know someone that can relate!

[Sylvander]

As stated, it's a good idea to copy the installation files to a partition other than C: and use a dos command to run Setup.exe from there.
Does the hardware meet the requirements of Win 95?
Did you partition using FAT16 and format the HDD?
Is there enough space on the HDD to install?
How did you manage to gain access to your CD-ROM drive?
Did you have a "CD-ROM Setup Boot Disk"?
Are the CD drivers correctly installed?
You can avoid that problem if you use a Windows 98 Startup disk with it's generic CD drivers to access the CD-Drive.
It sounds like Setup failed at the initialisation of hardware in Windows 95 despite being backward compatible with legacy hardware.
You could disconnect as much hardware as possible and install with just the minimum to see if Win95 installs, then shut down, add one item, restart, and see what happens, then add another etc.

Here's the instructions given in the Windows 95 Resource Kit Help Files:

To restart Setup after a failure
1. Press F3 or click the Exit button.
If the system does not respond, restart the computer by pressing CTRL+ALT+DEL. If this fails, turn off the computer, wait 10 seconds, and then turn it on again.
2. Start Setup again. Setup prompts you to use Safe Recovery to recover the failed installation. Choose the Safe Recovery option and click the Continue button. Setup will skip the portion that caused the initial failure.
3. If the computer stops again during the hardware detection process, restart Setup again, and repeat the process until the hardware detection portion of Setup is completed.

You can use the information in SETUPLOG.TXT and DETLOG.TXT to check for the device or devices that caused the problems. Also review any messages added by Setup in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file for instructions on correcting setup problems.

Setup stops during hardware detection
When Setup stalls during hardware detection, you might need to disable hardware detection for a device or class of devices. Before you do this, wait until at least three minutes have passed with neither disk nor screen activity (that is, the mouse pointer cannot be moved). Some detection routines take long enough that the computer might appear to stop temporarily.

To skip hardware detection in order to avoid problems

1. Run Windows 95 Setup from MS-DOS and, if this is not the first attempt to install, select Safe Recovery.
2. To disable the specific device detection during Setup, in the Hardware Detection dialog box, select the option to specify the hardware devices to detect. Then make sure the check box next to the device is not checked.

[Graynz]

thanks for that I knew it was something simple, just couldn't remember what. Typing in 'win' (then enter)did the trick.
sure is horrible trying to find my way around Win 3.1, let's hope I can even find the autoexec.bat ...
thanks again

[Graynz]

sounds like good advice Sylvander, I'll have a go with that when I next get a look at that 'old relic'
might buy it as a collectable, it has ALL the original documentation, software, packaging/boxes and put it in storage .... se ya