Unusual hdd & floppy behavior

[wxjunkie]

Here's the dilemma: I've got a machine from a couple of years ago (Comcrapq AMD k6 400mhz, sweet little workhorse it was), I'm going to sell it, so I figure, format it, use the system restore disc and bam, back to fresh-from-the-factory settings.
Not quite. First of all, I remove the hdd and put it in my new system to move a few files and to do a eight or ten pass 'wipe' of the disk with a freeware disk wiping program (WipePro to be exact). I did this, then repartitioned, formatted. Took the hdd out and popped it back into the old machine. Got an Win98 boot disk that I had used in the past, stuck it in, booted up....nothing. Said "ntldr" did not exist.

Now I'm thinking, okay I did format and repartition on a Win2k machine, but what difference should that make, this disk comes from a 98 machine, why am I getting a nt loader error, duh I know there's no OS, but how does it assume it's NT.

SO, I have a problem. I can't get the 98 startup disk to even load a primitive version of Windoze/DOS, so I can't do a simple fdisk or format. I don't have access to another Win98 machine right now, and time is of the essence.

This may seem vague, but I am certain that the problems only occurred after my obsessive wipe I did. However, the drive worked fine in my Win2k machine, as I wrote and tried to launch files from the hdd. So I doubt the WipePro app screwed up the hdd.

Any ideas anyone?

 

[IsOs]

Sounds like when you formatted & repartition using Windows 2000, you must have set the drive as NTFS drive.

Check your BIOS, it might have been set to boot only from harddrive. Change it to boot from floppy drive first.

 

[wxjunkie]

No I made sure that I used Fat32, I use it anyway with NT.

 

[wxjunkie]

BTW, this BIOS is on a Compaq.. few features, and no way to change the boot order of anything.

The strange thing is, the floppy drive works fine, I've tried reading from it and writing to it with another machine, but it refuses to recognize a Win98 startup disk. Even a simple disk with the basics, command.com, io.sys, msdos.sys etc., gives me a non-system disk error.

 

[Danlz]

I don't know squat about store-bought machines, but try putting the old HDD in the new machine and use the system disk to fdisk and format from DOS. Then return the HDD back to the old machine for the system rescue disk.

 

[ArkAoss]

yeah, ive worked with compaqs danlz is right. but one thing it the hd a fujitsu?? they have probs with win Nt. try wiping it on another physical machine, and fdisking it, but do not let win nt touch it again , if it's a fujitsu

 

[LogicalOne]

When WinNT formatted the drive, it put the boot code onto it to tell it to look for NTLDR. Do not even format a drive in NT if you're not gonna use NT on it or if you can't boot from floppy. Your best bet would be to remove the partition with WinNT, boot the NT box from your floppy, then run "fdisk /mbr" to wipe the NT boot code in the boot sector. After that, yank the drive, throw it in the Comcrap and boot from the Win98 boot disk that should now work. Load the most current Compaq BIOS from their website for the machine to be sure there are no issues and then do the restore.

 

[Danlz]

You guys are hot on the trail on this one.
LogicalOne...is fdisk/mbr the same as attrib c:\system.1st -r-s-h to thange the hidden registry info, then del system.1st? If so, the fdisk/mbr is a much shorter and easier to remember command.

 

[wxjunkie]

I finally just took out the cmos battery, because there are more than one jumper on this wacky board, and obviously Compaq has no documentation on the mobo, I don't even know who manufactured the thing.

The bios reset did the trick, I have no idea what was going on but it worked. Thanks for the help anyway guys, I appreciate it.

 

[spamboy]

I know it sounds dumb, but did you change the jumper setttings on the disk back when you moved it back to the Compaq?

 

[wxjunkie]

What the master slave settings? They were fixed, yep.