Windows 98 boot disk help

You may need to google for active@killdisk. You will find a boot disk to download that will run killdisk. That will low level the disk. Then use fdisk or whatever you like to partition. This is good to clean up if you instaled some kind of disk tools for larger drives or something at some point, that may be causing your troubles.

 

after checking in the bios again i noticed that it said primary IDE-not installed.


also another question might be noobish but i have a password set on startup and i cant see how to turn it off or disable it. i only see how to change it. anyways can i do this through startup?

 

Sounds like you have it setup for network login. If that is the case go to control panel and select network. You will see in that window a place to select primary network login. Set it to windows login instead of client for microsoft network.

 

I can't get the computer to startup though always asks for bootable media then i make little progress to get stuck somewhere else

 

Go here http://www.killdisk.com/downloadfree.htm download the free version. Read there manuals while your there. Then when you boot from that disk, if it don't recognize your hdd, it is either gone bad or not connected properly.

 

well the kill disk says no hard disks present.

 

Yup... Sounds like you may need to replace the drive.

 

The unfortunate words of a hard drive's obituary. Once you see that, it's nothing but a paper weight.

 

ah alright seeing how the computer was so old i wont bother to replace it, probably cost more to get a hdd then the computers worth. Well thanks to you fine people for helping me

 

I have a lot of machines of this era.. 40MHz 486's and early Pentiums..60's and 90's.

No boot media present? It's very often because the bios does not support booting from CD and has lost the HDD settings.

As it's successfully passing the POST it should be salvagable for next to nothing. The first thing to do is open the case and check the drive physically, cables and such.. Also check how the IDE cables connect to the board.. Do they go straight to the motherboard, or are they in an ancient ISA card plugged into a slot? (that may need a driver, time to start panicking.. lol) Whichever pull the drive out and with it all connected power it up. Does it spin up? and HDD light activity?
If not then it's probably a gonner, but if it spins and isn't going "tick..tick..tick" then there's hope for it.

Get into the bios settings.. usually delete/backspace or F2 with these antiques.. navigate across to HDD AUTODETECT and see if the bios finds anything on primary or secondary.. If it has found the drive select the set of numbers with (Y) in them..save and exit. There is a small chance the system will boot with no further assistance, otherwise you may need to change the boot sequence.
If you found nothing with auto detect (it doesn't always work) you will probably have to add the info manually. A lot of these old drives have a set of numbers on them.. cyls/sect/heads.. in the part of the bios where you set time and date you can add these numbers.. primary master is the one (check the jumper on the drive, and set it to master with the CD drive set to slave on the same cable) Again save and exit.

If that doesn't do it you need to get a salvage drive from somewhere.. Most repair shops will give you small old drives.. a couple of gigs.. they aren't worth anything to them. You will be saving them the trouble of binning it! I get given boxes of them from time to time, and most work, or can be got to work after a fashion.

Find out if your machine will boot from CD and post again after trying some tinkering with the bios settings.
Retro is good.. I'm posting this from a 1995 Pentium 90 running puppy linux. It's HDD is a Maxtor 83240D3 dated 6/10/98 and still going strong.

 

how can i restart my computer without the start up disc
the computer is hp 6630

 

Depends on what you need a startup disk for. HP should have given you recovery CDs didn't they?

 

@ddp,

The original model, 6630, 500Mhz Celeron, 64MB ram, 10GB hard drive....Windows 98 SE. If they haven't modified anything.

If that's the case, http://bootdisk.com You'll find all you need to create a bootable Win98SE floppy or CD.

 

HP/Compaq's home support site, is notorious for not always being able to provide system drivers for any of their systems. Sometimes you get lucky and they are all listed....but if they are not, just go by your system specs in the list and get the drivers from the vendor's site.

That HP is using the Intel i810 chipset...so you can get the drivers from Intel...and so on.