boot disk failure

[travis1971]

I need help, I reformatted the hard drive on a second computer and when I tried to reinstall win98 I keep getting the (boot disk failure install system disk and hit enter) I have downloaded boot disk off the internet and even went into bios to change the boot sequence all with the same results. What am I doing Wrong?

[urbandrag0n]

ok. 1 question. when you get this message does your floppy disk light up? I have seen the boot disk failure come up when the hdd is either not properly configured or is having actual problems.

what kind of boot disk do you have? If you have another windows 9x computer do the following....
Click Start
Point to Settings and click Control Panel
Click Add/Remove Programs
Click the Startup Disk tab
Click the Create Disk button
When finished, click OK to exit the Add/Remove Programs Properties dialog box.

I would recommend checking to see that fdisk is on the newly created floppy disk.
Chances are it will not be... to put it there just do a search for fdisk and copy/paste it to the floppy disk.

once you have a floppy boot disk do this.. put floppy disk in drive. make sure floppy is primary boot device in BIOS....

boot computer. it should load the floppy disk and you want to choose start with cdrom support... it will drop you to an A:\ prompt.

from there type fdisk and hit enter.
choose option 4 to view the partition information. (note all partitions listed.)
then follow directions to get back to main menu. should be the esc button. DELETE all partitions. then choose option 1 to create partition... then choose option 1 to create primary partition. it will go though a phase of verifying drive integrity... may take a bit depending on hdd size..
once that is complete go to option 4 again and view the partition information again. make sure you have 1 primary partition and make sure it is set to ACTIVE.
after that reboot your computer to the floopy disk again and choose same options to get you to a command prompt... from the a:\ type in format C: and hit enter
it will ask you if you want to put in a volume label, you can just hit enter there.... it will go though a formatting>...... with a percentage going up to 100% once that completes you can reboot your computer to your CDROM with the win 98 disk in and it should run. this is all assuming your hdd is not defective and that your IDE settings/cable is cofigured properly.

[travis1971]

thanks for the help I will try what you suggest and I will let you know if it works. I hope its not a hardware issue.

[urbandrag0n]

alot of times it isn't but is mistaken as one. you will probably see that you do not have an active partition, problem with the master boot record on the hdd or not formatted.

oh... you will also want to run the fdisk /mbr option at the beginning of the process with fdisk... it is recommended that you run it 3 or 4 times... then continue with the fdisk, no need to reboot at that point just keep going with the directions... post back if you have questions