boot disc issues

Ok I'm sorta gettin freaked out on this one. Was running 98se on an old compaq presario which was then formatted by FORMAT C:\. Figured I'd clean stuff up you know which of coursed it did but now I cannot get it to boot up. Tried making a floppy boot disc but it doesn't get the job done ( I get a message saying "162 system options not set" then I insert the floppy and get " Disk I/O error replace disk push any key" then when I do I keep getting the same message.Cant give you many specs other than it is a presario model 5204 which was preloaded with windows 98 from the factory. I do have the original discs that came with the unit and thought about tryin to get it to work with these but they put a lot of unecessary garbage on the unit which I hate. So I hope to be able to get a solution without going that route and who is to say that would work anyway. Thank you

 

Google came up with this for the "162 system options not set" error:


This message is displayed when the system configuration stored on the
motherboard (often called the "CMOS" since it's typically stored in
battery backed-up CMOS RAM) has become corrupted in some way. Except
for the time and date, the system will usually auto-detect its
environment, reset the parameters on its own, and is able to continue.
Before it tries to do so, you are usually presented with the choice of
pressing a key (F1 or F2, I think) to "continue", "boot", etc. with the
alternative of pressing a different key to "enter setup". If you select
"boot", it will run that time but may still give you the 162 error the
next time due to the internal clock still being invalid. (It may prompt
you for the time and date regardless, and you won't have to enter Setup
to do so.) In any event, the 162 error is not a killer error in and of
itself. Proceed past it by selecting "boot", and see if everything else
works.

If you still get the error the next bootup even though you DID set the
time & date previously, and it appears to have not retained it, then
the CMOS battery has run down and needs to be replaced so the setup
paramters will be retained, and so the clock can keep time in between
boot-ups.


Aside from that, you also appear to either have a bad floppy disk, or floppy drive. If you get your BIOS issues sorted out, you can create a bootable Win98SE CD instead of the floppy & boot from that. Instructions for that can be found here:

http://www.ntcompatible.com/How_do_I_create_a_bootable_Windows_98_CD-ROM_t23157.html

 

Thanks wavetar for the response. As for the solution for this problem is yet to be solved, I went ahead and contacted the compaq rescource website. They said it appeared to them that this may be HD related so now I'm tryin to get another HD so I can see if that was it.I'll keep postin as I may or may not need assistance to resolve this issue. Might have to post in hardware issues depending on what goes on lol. Thank you

 

Forgive me, but I am not sure I understand what is going on. Let me ask.....You formatted the hard drive and wanted to boot in DOS with a dos disk? If you format a drive, you erase it. You would need to reinstall Windows if that is the case. If you did reinstall Windows, none of the preloaded crap they put on your computer would come with it. They just add that stuff after the OS is installed. You would just have a fresh install of Windows. Please correct me if I misunderstood you at all. By the way, I have a hard time trying to help a Vikings fan. We just lost the damn Superbowl, but my boys are going back and we are gonna take the division again.

 

Ok we can put this one to rest as things were figured out. This was one of those ID-10-T things {hence idiot} and I know better but after a few cans of Miller High Life one tends to skip things. You see I should have FDISKED b4 formatting [my mistake]. It gave me a good excuse to get another hard drive though without the wife complaining so it all worked I reckon. Thanks for the assistance and GO VIKES. Sorry there Walter34payton about your Bears--in my observation of the game it was a Grossman issue is why the game wasn't a better one. Colts would have anyway though regardless--it was Mannings turn.