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new hard drive wont boot

hi i got a new 10 gig hard drive for my compaq laptop. i put the windows 98 cd in and booted it up, and selected start setup from cd like always, but thats as far as it will go. it wont load windows setup, and i cant use a dos startup disk to get a promt even?

i have been told that i need to write the boot secot of my hard drive? can anyone help

thanks

what error you get?
if u dont have any partitions on thehdd, windows should prompt u to make them and format before u can actually install anything on it

ASKER

i dont get any error messages

if i try and boot with no disks in i get "no operating sys"

if i put in just my dos startup disk i get nothing

if i put in the win98 cdrom it comes to screen with option to boot from hard disk or cdrom. if i select hard disk it says no OS found, and if i select cdrom it just goes to dark screen

does the cd boot proper on any other computer?

ASKER

also i did get the partition optin screen the first time i booted with the win98cdrom adn i followed the instructions on the screen, then it said it was going to restart, and to insetr windows startup first disk which i did, but now i get nothing

ASKER

yes the cd boots on other computers

boot from the windows cd again...can u go to a prompt like A:> or something???
i guess you have created partitions using fdisk.
you need to create a primary partition and set it as active.
then reboot and format it using "format c: /s"
then again reboot using the cd and the setup should continue normally

ASKER

what i dont understand is why i cant get a msdos prompt from a msdos startup disk

ASKER

i cannot get to a prompt in any way

if u cannot get it with floppy, it may be bad.
with cd at least u should get it...
where exactly it gets stuck up???
after what stage, prompt....

ASKER

i cannot get to a prompt in any way

ASKER

ok

if i use a dos startup disk it never shows anything, it reads it and then just stops

if i use the cdrom if goes to select boot from cd or hdd, i select cdrom and it goes to blank screen

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goto cmos setup

ASKER

nothing

can i install msdos from a disk so i can get to my drive and reformat it?

ASKER

ok i got it to load the msdos **** and get me to prompt

now what do i need to do to get rollin here and get my win98 installed again

run fdisk and choose 4th option to give partition info
give me that info here

ASKER

ok so at c:\ prompt it says c:\ is only 2gig

ASKER

i run f disk and it says no fixed disks present

ASKER

c: is virtual disk it says in the list
i get a message windows detedts that c: does not caontain a valid partition

ASKER

i try and run d:setup and it says cannot create a temporary directory you need to create a msdos partition to setup windows

go to cmos setup and set all the drives to auto and reboot and try again

ASKER

now it does the same as original
i realized the time i got it to load and give me a prompt i had the drive unplugged

somehow my hard drive is messed, but it is new

ASKER

with the drive plugged in, its weird, like it tries to boot off the startup disk, but it just goes blank

Compaq is in its own little world sometimes.... do you have any original installation disks, etc. that came with your machine?
If not, try going here ...http://www.wimsbios.com/ Click on manufacturers link then click compaq for explanation and possible fixes.
(My understanding is that you're going to need the compaq diagnostic software to get the hd working.)

..re the cmos ..did you get into it with f10 or not? .

ASKER

i can get into cmos, but the bios is very limited on options

like i said , the startup disk will boot me to prompt with the hdd unplugged, but not with it plugged in

your pc detects your hd wrong on your pc it can be that your bios is too old can you boot from dos and flash your bios to a newer version

ASKER

i can boot in dos with the hd unplugged, how do i flash my bios from there?

Have you downloaded the softpaq files?

Interesting - so far as I can see from the thread you have not confirmed if you have:

1. Set up the bios so that it boots from the CDROM first

2. Set the jumpers on the hdd to master and checked that the Primary Master in the bios is set to auto-detect.

The boot order at this stage of the game should be set in the bios to CDROM, hdd, fdd. Only after everything is installed should you change it back to hdd, CDROM, fdd.

After setting the bios as above, switch off your machine and start again with the CDROM in its drive.

Hope that helps

ASKER

i have done all of the above, and it still is cracking out, i guess it is a bad drive

ASKER

thankls for the help