Need help this problem is beyond me.

Ok here goes.............

Tabor3 MB 440BX Chipset
PII 450
224megs PC100
Windose 98se
Western Digital 80gig - Master
Quantum 10gig - Slave

Everything seemed fine until we loaded BVS Solitaire at which point the mouse now worky. Got a Blue Screen and it was froze at that point. Ctrl-Alt-Delete didnt work so the power was shut off. Then when trying to reboot it says there is no OS. Have tried everything I know to do & nothing. Tried reformatting but it says Windose cannot be installed because there is no drive, when the BIOS shows both drives.

I have tried both drives seperately.....nothing. Have changed the ribbon cables....nothing. Reset CMOS & nothing in the BIOS has changed from the last time I was in there. I write all that stuff down. Learned the hard way. lol

Nothing new has been done to the computer. No new programs installed, nothing removed & it's not connected to the internet. At this point I don't know what else to try.

Also getting errors in the bootup screen as follows.

Error
02B2: Incorrect Drive A Type - run SETUP
Error
0200: Failure Fixed Disk 0

Does this with both drives no matter which way I have it configured. The machine is hooked up to a Battery Backup, surge protectors, bla bla bla. Both drives are listed in the bottup screen as well. So I really have not a clue what the problem is. This is a new one to. Any help would be most appreciated.

Chris

 

can you boot to a cd? try installing windows on top of itself if you can.

 

Yep tried that & it says that I cannot install Windose because there is no drive to install to. Tried booting from cd to install Windose. Tried booting with & w/o cd-rom support.....nothing. If the drive was dead it wouldn't be recognized would it? Both drives have an LED that lights up when it first tries to boot, but then goes off like it always has. Then I get the Errors I listed above. It does it on both drives, even sperately. Could both drives just fail at the same time? I've never had that happen before. Every time I've had one die, it wouldn't even be listed in the BIOS or the boot screen, these are showing up on both. Really weird.

 

Yes the Floppy LED does light up, but it doesn't go off, it just stays on & now that you mention it, the Date & Time was incorrect. So if that's the problem, what might I do at this point?

 

Ok man will do.

 

You mention that the date and time were incorrect...

How old is the CMOS backup battery? Inability to retain date and time settings is sometimes the first sign of a failing battery. Loss of hard drive settings isn't far down the road at that point.

You say that the BIOS sees both drives...

Do you mean that the drive settings appear in the CMOS setup screen, or do you mean that the BIOS recognises both drives on boot-up and shows the drives in the system status screen that comes up during the POST shortly after you turn on the power?

The former only shows that the CMOS hasn't lost battery power or been messed with. But if the BIOS is able to recognise the drives on boot-up, the drive electronics are probably OK, but I would then wonder if something has messed up your Master Boot Record (MBR) and/or partition tables, with the result that the BIOS cannot read the drive or find the installed OS to load it.

The fact that you had just loaded BVS Solitaire (whatever that is) leaves me wondering. If it carried a virus that knocked out any of the system areas of your hard drive, you'll want to fix that before it does it again. (Granted, if you re-partition and re-format the drive, that won't be an issue -- until you try loading BVS Solitaire again!)

Have you tried FDISK or a partition management program like Partition Magic to see if either recognises the partitioning in effect on the drives in question? You might try executing FDISK /MBR to re-write the MBR -- but I'm not sure about possible side effects or the safety of your data on the drive if you do that. Maybe somebody else following this thread might comment on that.

 

Well the whole system is quite old. Got in '99 for the matter. I will see about the battery, jeeze hadn't even thought of that. lol I do have another identical MB, I'll see if that battery is any better. Also the Date & Time go back to 1-1-1990 & the clock starts over at 0 hour everytime I reboot.

Yes both drives show up in the BIOS & in the "system status screen". As far as the MBR goes I reckon that could also be the problem, but seeing as I can't get into Windose in any way ( not even Safe Mode ), I can't use Partition Magic or any other Windose based programs to check that can I? Like I said, this one is beyond me.

BVS Solitaire has been running on this computer forever & not been a problem thus far. Haven't gone to the FDISK option as of yet because I didn't really want to reformat if I didn't have to, but it's lookin' like that's gonna be the only option.

I will check on these new suggestions and get back with you. Thnx

 

and it even said drive A...i should have caught that. nice 1 halo

 

Ok like I said I got the Floppy fixed. I replaced the battery with a new one, but I'm still getting the 0200 Error. I tried the 10gig HD in another machine & after reformating, it works great.

Oh yea, I tried the FDISK on the current machine, but I'm still getting the messege stating there is not a HD to install on. Again they both show up in the BIOS & on the bootup screen. This has really stumped me.

It's times like that make me wonder why I got involved with computers in the first place. LOL

And to boot? My step-daughter threw away the battery. She asaid she didn't know what it was for. I asked if that shouldn't be a good indicator that maybe you should ask someone what it might be for? LOL

 

Oops

BIOS INFO:

Phoenix 4.0 Release 6.0
4W4SBOXO.ISA.0019.PI4

 

I gather you've checked the hard drive settings in the CMOS set-up. Can you read anything from the hard drive after booting from your Windows Startup Diskette? What happens when you run the command DIR C: from the DOS command line after starting from the Startup Diskette?

If the hard drive settings are correct in your CMOS, it sounds like you might be trying to skip a step or two.

FDISK wouldn't give the message you describe. It doesn't install anything, it just writes a new Master Boot Record and partition tables as needed. But the Windows installer certainly might say there's no drive to install on if it doesn't like the partitioning or formatting of the drive you're trying to install Windows on.

(And I'm still wondering if the MBR and/or partition tables got corrupted somehow. The fact that you had to re-format the 10GB drive makes me wonder even more. A bad MBR or partition table could account for the inability to read from or write to the drive. If that's the case, re-partitioning may be necessary if running FDISK /MBR doesn't work.)

What happens when you run FDISK /MBR from your Startup Diskette or a DOS command line? (DON'T run FDISK within Windows!!! For more info on that particular command, just Google it and see what you get. There's lots. And you should definitely take the trouble to read at least Microsoft's knowledgebase article.)

What happens when you run FDISK, delete all partitions on the drive, then create a new partition (or partitions) on the drive? (Once you've done that, you'll need to run FORMAT to format at least the primary partition on the drive.)

Use the versions of FDISK and FORMAT that are on the Windows CD-ROM you're installing from. They'll be on the Startup Diskette (if you made one!). Boot from that diskette and run both programs from there. Once you've re-partitioned and formatted the drive, the Windows installer should be able to recognise the drive and install Windows onto it.

(A word for the unwary: using FDISK or FORMAT as described above will destroy all data on the drive with no hope of recovery. FDISK /MBR is normally safe, unless you are using certain disk management or multiple-boot software. See Microsoft's article.)