Same song, 2nd verse - no HDD boot on another restore

[SVTarHeel]

I got the Compaq (post below) fixed, now booting to DOS/Win 3.1 like a champ. In trying to clear the backlog of stuff I'm trying to keep out of the landfill, I'm working on one more 486. This one is a Packard Bell Legend 20CD. I have the restore floppy and CD. Boot to the floppy, run restore from the CD and everything goes as expected. When the restore routine finishes and I reboot, after all the BIOS run thru, nothing. If I boot to a diskette to get to the A:\ prompt, I can see all the files on C: just as they should be.

Based on the Compaq experience, I tried setting the 420MB Seagate HD to master, only and CS. No joy. I even tried an 850 Conner HD (which was recognized properly in the BIOS) - the system restored fine, but no boot when master, only or CS. The partitions on both hard drives are indeed set as (A)ctive.

It may have been so long since I've messed w/ a system this old that I'm missing something painfully obvious, but I'm out of ideas. Any thoughts will be gladly tried and reported back on.

TIA,

[PC Solutions]

First boot off of a DOS diskette of the same flavor that you are working with.
Go to bootdisk.com if you need one

Run FDISK and make sure that the primary partition is set to active.
Otherwise it wont boot. Opps, you already said that!

Check the obvious, like loose cables, cards etc
Get it down to bare bones.
Keyboard, video, mouse and power only. No other devices

Boot off a boot disk for the same version of DOS
Type

fdisk /mbr

It will appear to do nothing
Then type

sys c:

It will say
System Transferred

Reboot
See if that takes care of it
Old DOS trick from the wayback machine
Hope it helps

[SVTarHeel]

Well, that worked - and it didn't. After FDISK /mbr, I could boot to the C: drive. After reformatting the HD, rerunning the FDISK /mbr and rerunning the PB Restore, I'm back to where I was - a blinking cursor after the BIOS/POST routine. No booting to C: even though the files are there...

[PC Solutions]

You dont need to format it and reload it. For some reason the master boot record is getting corrupt
Just do
FDISK /MBR
then
SYS C:
and reboot

Packard Bells are thorny beasts!
You have to beat them int submission!
No wonder they are long out of business

Wait a minute
This is a Compaq system
Are you trying to run a PB Pacard Bell recovery disk on it?

[SVTarHeel]

The Compaq (from the post below) is fixed. This one is a Packard Bell. I have a copy of the PB boot floppy and restore CD. I'm trying to put it back to factory specs, but I still have no boot to C: unless I manually FDISK /mbr and then the system will boot to C: but there are error messages...

[104456]

but there are error messages

Post the error messages.
What happens if you type win at the prompt does win 3x start up?
Also post the contents of Autoexec.bat and Config.sys.You can read these with the Edit command at the C:\> prompt.

[SVTarHeel]

The error message had to do with the Sound and CD drivers being missing.

If I type Win after booting from a DOS diskette, I get a "HIMEM.SYS missing" error. If I type Win after booting from a Win98 diskette, I get a non-matching DOS version error.

When I got this system, it had 2 hard drives, so I put the other one back in. I remembered a couple of older systems I had that liked having both a master and slave. Same deal - no boot to C: but both drives in DOS and both drives and all files visible if I boot to diskette. I also tried running a restore and then FDISK /mbr - no change to anything was apparent.

Here are the boot files from the system after restore:
CONFIG.SYS
DEVICE=C:\PLUGPLAY\DRIVERS\DOS\DWCFGMG.SYS
DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS
DOS=HIGH,UMB
DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE RAM MIN=0 D=64
FILES=30
BUFFERS=20
STACKS=9,256
FCBS=1,0
DEVICEHIGH=C:\WINDOWS\MOUSE.SYS
DEVICEHIGH=C:\WINDOWS\IFSHLP.SYS
DEVICEHIGH=C:\SOUND16A\DRIVERS\CDMKE.SYS /P:340 /D:MSCD0001

AUTOEXEC.BAT
@ECHO OFF
c:\pbtools\backup\fixsys.bat

[104456]

but I still have no boot to C: unless I manually FDISK /mbr and then the system will boot to C: but there are error messages...

I actually meant if you type win here at the point the installed DOS boots to the prompt not the boot disk as this will be a different version of DOS.
CD and Sound drivers have to be loaded in dos for win 3x to see them though Ive never seen it complain if they are missing as its to basic an OS

Is it win3x your installing or possibly win 95A?

BTW you can use one of the Freeware DOS installs rather than MSDOS for Win 3x if you wish.

[SVTarHeel]

Well, the Windows file dates in C:\Windows are all 2-20-95. From what I have in my files, the earliest Win95 version has files dated 7-11-95. Since it is a 486, my assumption all along has been that I'm restoring Win 3.1 from the PB restore CD but I've never booted successfully to find out.

And there's no way to type anything from the installed DOS prompt since it doesn't go that far - I never get anything but a blinking cursor after the BIOS/POST routine. The only way I know the files are on the HD is from booting from some other diskette, but all the hard drives I've tried have shown up successfuly both in the BIOS and when executing DIR C: from a boot floppy.

[PC Solutions]

07/11/95 is Window 95 original dates of release, Not DOS 6.22
08/24/96 is the dates of Win95 SR2

If you want to install DOS 6.22 and Win3.1 or Workgroups, which is Win 3.11 you are using entirely the wrong thing!
I go back to DOS 2.1

The mods are mad at me for being honest, and sometimes hard.
Therefore I do have the correct answer, but I cannot tell you!
My hands are tied

[SVTarHeel]

By overusing the word 'files' I may have been confusing. The PB restored Windows files on the C: drive are from 2-20-95. In my Windows documents, I found a note that the earliest Win95 version has files dated 7-11-95.

Since the installed files are 2-20-95, I'm assuming they are some flavor of Win 3.X...

[PC Solutions]

That is correct.

Now, what do you want fir an OS?
DOS 6.2x and Win3.x or Win 95?

The mods are mad at me. So I have to be very careful how I respond to your question

What version of DOS or Windows do you want to be running?
That is a question that no one has asked yet, and appears to be a crucial issue.

[SVTarHeel]

Overall, I want to restore this system just the way it came from the factory, w/ all the extra software, needed drivers, etc. I'm not concerned whether its Windows 3 or 95. I just don't want to have to go tracking down drivers for any of the esoteric hardware included, trying to add other useful software, etc. I'm assuming that the restore CD installs DOS and Windows 3.X.

At present, I seem to have gotten the restore to run properly, but I can't get the system to boot to any hard drive I put in it, and it hasn't mattered yet whether it was set as master, slave or CS.

So it may be a 2 step process - (1) get the system to boot, and (2) make sure it boots to the restored PB files.

[104456]

At the C prompt type ver this will show the version of dos installed by the restore CD if indead it is inclusive of Win3x whereas if it is Win 95 it will likely give the version of 95 installed.
Win 3x is quite happy to run on Dos 6.22 and some other freeware dos installs for that matter I believe it also offers the advantage of better DOS based commands and applications too.
As to the date of win 3.11 a look at a VMWare install suggests windows file dates are from around Nov 93.

[SVTarHeel]

The ver command won't work - since I can't get to the C: prompt by booting the machine to the hard drive, the ver command only tells me the OS version of the floppy used to boot the system. It tells me the version running, not the version installed. I'm going to give this an additional day or two of thinking - if I can't get it booting correctly, I'll just punt and move onto other, more productive things.

I appreciate all the help so far...