What have i missed

[slamgreg]

Hi everyone,got this problem with booting an OS on my friends system
system specs are AMD k6 VIA (VT8501)Chipset,64MB RAM, Award BIOS
He's system crashed,i tried to bring it back up again.It would goes as far as detecting the hardrive then stop,could use DOS because i could see the C:\ ,all directories but couldn't boot into Windows not matter what,i formated,re-installed and the ultimate even tried to install Linux to see if that would work,no luck,I thought i was in luck when i got it to install from CD-Rom everything proceeded normally until time came to finalise the hardware settings,which requiered a reboot,after reboot it would go through POST etc detect hdd then nothing -BLANK SCREEN.

[lucske74]

maybe a dummy question ! But have you format like this Format C:/S

The "S" is for the systemfiles on the bootup diskette to copied to the harddrive
You must first Fdisk ,make a partion then close fdisk.
then format C:/S like this .
Then you can install Win98 ,
for WinMe or XP you must format only with format C:
Me and Xp they do the rest off the formatting and instalation

[slamgreg]

Thanx anyway man ,there's no such thing as a dumb question just people who don't ask question and remain dumb.I've tried everything and i mean everything,or maby not.i'm currently studying computer science and have switched my focus to software development and have lost touch with the hardware,but i'm getting into it again.anyway thanks for trying post again if you find another way
Greg

[lucske74]

what does the meanboard if You take de HD away !
Can you start with the floppy . Do you then past the POST !

[edwin]

Thanx anyway man ,there's no such thing as a dumb question just people who don't ask question and remain dumb.I've tried everything and i mean everything,or maby not.i'm currently studying computer science and have switched my focus to software development and have lost touch with the hardware,but i'm getting into it again.anyway thanks for trying post again if you find another way
Greg

boot from setup floppy, fdisk, check if the partition is active.