Computer Emergency

[Buddha the DM]

BardStephenFox: Thing is I don't have a spare drive to replace my existing CD drive with.. It got put into a different computer here.

Camarath: reformat/reinstall.. early in the reinstall part of things.. aborted & retried with the same results.. I was using WinXP Pro.. I had upgraded to that from the comp's original OS of Win98SE.. Tried going back to 98SE but can't, it doesn't seem to like the 40 GB hard drive that I have as my C:\ drive.

 

[Buddha the DM]

heh, gotat love tech support people.

Well if that didnt work, to test if its the cddrive and not the cd, borrow a windows cd from a friend. Around here, everyone has one, they are like candies.

If you get the SAME problem then you know its your drive.

(then again, if you're using a burned copy, it could simply be some skewed copy protection that bungled the file when it was being burned.)

Anywho, since my first bit of advice didnt work. If nothing else someone else here works, simply take it to the nearest pc shop. for 25$ service fee they should fix you right up (unless you need to replace any hardware)

I'd borrow my brother's copy of the cd if he could find it. As for the repair shop that may have to happen when I get the $$ for it which won't be any time soon though.

 

[Camarath]

http://www.retosphere.de/tipsandtricks/ntfserror.php?menu_id=20&#references
http://www.xtremepccentral.com/forums/archive/39/2003/08/2/6177
Do either of these sound like the error you are having? If this is the same problem it looks like a file-systems error.

 

[BrooklynKnight]

OH, Wait, are you trying to re-install Windows 98se over a windows xp install?

THAT might be the problem..

See, once you replace FAT32 with NFTS it makes going back to windows 98 nearly impossible. You'd have to completly format the harddrive, a full format, not just a deletion of information, to even have a chance of installing windows 98 on there.

If you're trying to re-install windows xp (and i'm not sure why you would have too. I've had almost no problems with mine for well over a year, and i have uptimes of up to 2 or 3 weeks between reboots), then try first defragging the harddrive, then running a full surface scan on scandisk (run scandisk on the cd also just for the hell of it.) Once that is complete, just do a general virus sweep on the pc, virii can screw up installation of windows.

After all that, try just a refresh of the OS not a full reformat/reinstall. After the refresh, THEN try the reformat/reinstall.

If none of this works......well......you're up the river without a paddle.

 

[Buddha the DM]

http://www.xtremepccentral.com/forums/archive/39/2003/08/2/6177

That one sounds like it.

 

[Buddha the DM]

not trying to overwrite 98SE over XP... was trying a fresh install of XP.. was goinng to try 98SE as a last resort to get my comp at least marginally functionable, which didn't work.. now i can't even find a system disk on the comp...

 

[BrooklynKnight]

That one sounds like it.

there ya go, good luck.

 

[Buddha the DM]

i can't even get to that point now, man...

 

[Camarath]

That one sounds like it.

In that case I suggest you try the the fix suggested there. If that doesn't work you might try a reformat using FDISK or a Hard Drive start disk. If you have a Western Digital drive I know you can use its reformating function to reformat NTFS partitions (as FAT32).

 

[Buddha the DM]

both of my hard drives are Maxtor Drives... It didn't occur to me to try using those as a boot disk...