Win 98se will not load

[jdc2000]

Jerry,

What happens when you try to delete the Attachment files when managing your Attachments? Do the check boxes appear? Does the Delete button appear? We need details. Note: Do NOT use SeaMonkey to try this - the VirtualDr site will not display correctly in SeaMonkey. Use Internet Explorer 9 or later, or the current Firefox version.

If the boot sequence on Windows 98 hangs at the same place with or without the hard drive connected, but with a boot failure message with the drive connected, then there are likely 2 possibilities:

1. The drive is bad.

2. The drive controller is bad.

To see which might be the case, you could try connecting the Windows 98 drive to another computer AS A SLAVE DRIVE, not as the boot drive, to see what happens. If the dtrive is recognized by the other computer, you could then try to run diagnostics on it.

[jerryhillman]

" Do the check boxes appear? Does the Delete box appear". No boxes appear.

I only get the Boot Failure message when I disconnect the Hard Drive. When the Hard Drive is connected no boot failure appears.

Jerry

[jdc2000]

When the hard drive is disconnected, the BIOS is recognizing that there is no boot device and you don't get the boot failure message, so it looks like the drive is at least being detected. However, it could still be a bad controller, although a bad drive is more likely.

Do you have another computer you can connect the suspect Windows 98 drive to for testing?

Do you have another known good drive that could be used as your Windows 98 boot drive?


On the Attachments issue, if there are no check boxes displayed in the browser you are using, then you will not be able to delete the attachments. Try a different browser - the boxes should appear using the latest version of Internet Explorer, or in the latest Firefox browser, or the latest ESR version of Firefox. They will likely NOT appear in SeaMonkey, or in Vivaldi. Chrome may work, or it may not.

[jerryhillman]

win98-1.pdfScreenShot001.jpg

[jerryhillman]

"When the hard drive is disconnected, the BIOS is recognizing that there is no boot device and you don't get the boot failure message"
When the hard drive is disconnected I DO get a boot failure message.
When the hard drive is CONNECTED I DO NOT get a boot failure message.

Is there any way to force windows to start?

Jerry

[jdc2000]

What is the last message you get on screen when the hard drive is connected?

Does it just hang after the ACPI controller message?
If so, and it does so with no hard drive connected, you may have a motherboard problem.

You could try resetting the BIOS to factory default settings. If that does not work, your options are limited.

You could also try connecting a known good hard drive to the Windows 98 computer. It does not have to have Windows 98 installed, as long as you are not needing to save any of the files on it, it is just for testing to see what happens.

Is there any way to force Windows to start? - No, unless we can determine what the problem is. At this point we don't know if the problem is with the motherboard, drive controller, or the drive.

[Train]

JFYI - Remember there are no drivers in 98 for SATA HDDs.

[jerryhillman]

The trouble was a bad hard drive. I put is another hard drive and it fired right up. I put the bad drive in another computer and it would not work.
Problem resolved.
I have a new problem. My new hard drive with win 98 on it will not recognize my 2 cd drives. I disconnected them booted up then shut off and reconnected them.
Windows did not reinstall them. I went to add hardware and found them. They showed up in device manager but had a yellow mark saying the driver has a problem.
Can this be fixed?

Jerry