Operating system not found

A friend has an HP computer with Windows 98.
She is having trouble booting. First the HP logo screen comes up, I cannot see if the hard drive is detected. Then a strange repeating squeaking sound starts. There is not a fan sound. Then the message appears: Operating system not found.

We cannot hear the single beep after POST.

She has a HP supplied recovery CD.

I checked the BIOS and the drive type is set for AUTO on the Primary Master

I was thinking of booting with a Windows 98 floppy and she said she may be able to get one made at work. But then I thought we may need a Windows 98 floppy diskette made with the FAT32EBD.EXE program. That's in case she has a FAT32 file system. Otherwise we may get a "invalid drive specification" message if we try with a regular Windows 98 boot floppy and she has a FAT 32 system partition.

Does anyone have the FAT32EBD.EXE program, so I could make a Windows 98 boot floppy capable of accessing her hard drive?

Hi Robert, I've attached the whole FAT32EBD folder from my 98SE CD. Includes a video in .dat format and the ReadMe file. I remember vaguely something about adding HIMEM.SYS to the boot floppy in certain situations, it should be in her recovery disk. Let me know if you need that as well.

You may also find this link useful.

Just from the "sound" of it I'd be tempted to open the case, see what brand of HD is in there. Then go to the manufacturers site and download the Hard drive diagnostics application and run it to see if the drive is actually dead.

That's my 2 cents.

Edit: That involves opening both the computer and the mind ;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Herring

download the Hard drive diagnostics application and run it to see if the drive is actually dead.

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Well as Robert M has informed us on many occasions, Hard Drives rarely die it's always an error in the way they have been set up in BIOS.

So I'll be watching this thread with great interest as to what has happened to the drive involved in this case.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Robert M

I was thinking of booting with a Windows 98 floppy and she said she may be able to get one made at work.

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You might want to try this:

1. Go to http://www.bootdisk.com
   
   
2. Click the "DOS/Windows9X/Me/NT/2K/XP Excellent Bootdisks" link
   
   
3. Click the "Windows 98 SE OEM" link
   
   
4. Save the file to "C:\" as "c:\boot98se.exe"
   
   
5. While the file is downloading, go ahead and insert an empty diskette into drive A:
   
   
6. Click Start | Run, type in c:\boot98se.exe and press [Enter] (or click [OK]).
   
   
7. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the creation of a bootable Windows 98 SE System diskette

To start the Windows 98 Setup routine:

1. When you boot from this diskette, select (using the arrow keys) the line that has "with CD support" in it and then watch the screen for the drive letter that will be assigned to the CD-ROM drive. (As an example, let's say it is assigned drive "E:").
   
   
2. When you get to an A:\> prompt, insert your Windows 98 CD in the CD-ROM drive, type e:\setup and press [Enter]. (Replace that "e:" with whatever drive letter your system assigned to the CD-ROM drive).
   
   
3. With any luck the Windows 98 setup routine will start and you should be able to follow along with the on-screen instructions to install Windows 98.

Note: Don't forget to remove the Windows 98 SE System diskette from A: before the computer reboots.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Robert M

But then I thought we may need a Windows 98 floppy diskette made with the FAT32EBD.EXE program. That's in case she has a FAT32 file system. Otherwise we may get a "invalid drive specification" message if we try with a regular Windows 98 boot floppy and she has a FAT 32 system partition.

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Windows 98 SE will use FAT32 if you answered "Y"es to FDISK's "Do you wish to enable large disk support?" prompt. If you answered "N"o, it will use FAT16.

(Note that Windows 98 does not recognize the NTFS [XP] file system).

Sounds like a corrupt MBR. Using a bootdisk go to the A prompt and type in fdisk /mbr and enter. This is a pretty quick check and could save alot of teeth knashing. :)

Thanks for the tips everyone.
And thanks for the folder lgbpop.

Herring, if I boot with a floppy and all looks OK on the hard drive I may not need hard drive diagostics.

SpywareDr,
That's right, but I did not set up her partition so I don't know if it FAT32 or or not. I'll try to access with Windows 98 diskette. I may need to make a FAT32 style diskette, don't know yet. Let you know. If I have access to the hard drive should I "SYS" the hard drive?

You're welcome, let us know how you make out.

I couldn't boot and receive and A > prompt while booting with a floppy disk.
The floppy drive seems to be set up as 1.44 in the BIOS.
And that's the type of diskette I used.
I'm assuming the machine doesn't have a 720 K drive, but who knows.
The floppy drive seems to look at it but eventually the Operating System not found appears anyway.

I haven't made a dsikette with the FAT32EBD.EXE disk, bbut even with FAT332 on the hard drive i thought I would receive and A > prompt.

The hard drive does not identify itself on the black screen when other devices such as the mouse and the CDROM drives do.
There are a couple of messages at boot time that I don't understand.

One says Press CTRL+ALT+B to boot. I think its an option to boot using a network card.

Another reports something about MBA or Managed Boot Agent

In the BIOS there is a PXE option or Program Execution Environment.

Anyone familiar with these fancy Hewlette Packards computers with Environments installed.?

I'm posting to correct my previous post a bit.
The message I saw was:
Press CTRL+ALT+B to configure

Hey lgbpop,
I tried to use the link for the fat32ebd link you posted, but received an error.
I tried to get at the zipped files, but a message about a password appeared when trying to unzip them. They were apparently zipped up using a password and now the password to unzip is required.

That's odd! I never ran into that before. I have no passwords on my computer. If it's expecting my VDr or email password, it ain't happening.:) It may be encrypted, but I didn't have an option to do so.

PM me with an email address and I'll send you the file. It's 63KB, it will mail fine.

lgbpop that file works fine for me.

Thanks, Train, for verifying that!

Hey lgbpop
Can you supply the folder again?
Never managed to create the FAT32 boot diskette. Lost touch with this person, but want a boot diskette for FAT32 systems anyway.

This thread is over 7 months old.

All 98 boot disks use FAT32

Actually, floppy diskettes themselves use a 12-bit FAT (File Allocation Table):

Microsoft Help and Support
FAT Type and Cluster Size Depends on Logical Drive Size
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/67321/EN-US/

Windows 98SE itself is capable of formatting disks/partitions using FAT12, FAT16 or FAT32.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PC Solutions

This thread is over 7 months old.

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Doesnt matter in the slightest!

I have replied to threads that were 6,7 years old.... (Provided the link is still valid in the thread and/or there isnt any UNFORMATTED TEXT..)