re: Can not boot up in standard mode
Saturday, January 10, 2009 at 12:08 pm
Windows 98 Annoyances Discussion Forum
Posted by gewg_
(3923 messages posted)
rob wrote:
||I have tried to access the D: drive through the command prompt[...]
||and it's telling me that drive in not available.
||
To access a device under an operating system,
you need a device driver for the device FOR *THAT* OPERATING SYSTEM.
As Keith has said, when you start up in DOS,
you need a DOS device driver for each peripheral.
As he also said, getting one of the many Startup Disks available will solve this.
||I assume you mean "rebuild" as in a reinstall?
||
||Any tips on a reinstall?
||
This guide has a lot of good stuff:
cache of
http://www.usbman.com/Guides/Clean%20Install%20of%20Windows.htm
(I really hate it when bozos put spaces in file names
--when that stuff will be put on the 'Net.)
Here's another:
cache of
http://www.windowsreinstall.com/win98/install98cd/indexfullpage.htm
and another:
http://www.pcnineoneone.com/howto/clean1.html
Among those, all the points should be covered nicely.
Keith Stanier wrote:
|What I suggest you do is download a Win98SE boot disk[...]
|
Properly named, that would be a "Windows 98 Startup Disk"
because of the files it contains *other* than the DOS kernel.
|The two main files apart from your CD Rom drivers[...]
|
While the disk contains a driver for each of *several* types of CD-ROM drives,
only ONE device driver will be needed by a single disk drive.
(You've made a grammarical/syntactical error that many people do.)
|on a boot disk are Format.com and Fdisk.exe.
|
Again (the misleading name of the site bootdisk.com aside),
these are more than a simple "bootable disk".
|With your boot disk inserted just type in Copy Fdisk.exe A: and enter
|
Now you've conflated the 2 ideas ("bootable disk" and "Startup Disk").
If he gets a Startup Disk, all the necessary files should be there;
if he does this to a blank (formatted) diskette,
that disk won't be bootable without using the SYS command.
gewg_ wrote:
|||It sounds like a DOS app is trying to run in fullscreen mode.
|||If you can see a difference when you hit Alt+Enter or Alt+Tab , then I'm right
|In all the years I've been using computers I've never had that problem.
|
If you don't run AUTOEXEC.BAT when Windoze starts (it's not needed),
there is zero chance you would ever see a DOS app start there.
If you do run AUTOEXEC.BAT at startup
and don't have any DOS apps/commands there that are told to run,
you won't see it either.
If you run DOS apps and don't have any of them configured for fullscreen running
(via PIF file), you won't ever see the *fullscreen DOS* thing either.
|A DOS screen is just that[:] a full black screen where you can type commands.
|
Windoze can *appear* to be "shelled out" to DOS
by clicking the Command Prompt icon that installs in the QuickLaunch bar by default
or by running COMMAND.COM via Start/Run.
Because that isn't Real DOS(tm), this confuses the **DOS** issue.
As mentioned, **before** WIN.COM gets run,
AUTOEXEC can also run a DOS app or command.
**That** is Real DOS(tm).
If it TRIED to run a *broken* DOS app or command
or didn't use the CALL command in a batch file or when running a batch file,
it could stop at a DOS prompt and wait for further input.
The moral of this story, boys and girls, is
Don't run AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS if you don't **need** them.
They slow down your Startup times and can cause problems.
|
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 |  | | | |  | re: Can not boot up in standard mode (gewg_: Sat, Jan 10, 2009, 12:08 pm) |
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