reinstalling W95 without floppy disk

[navid]

I'm trying to fix my old computer, a Pentium II 233 but I have big problems. I hope someone can help me:

1) I formatted the hard disk (because win95 had a virus) and now is empty
2) the floppy disk doesn't work, so I could not update the antivirus
3) as the floppy disk doesn't work, I can not install DOS or start a boot disk
4) a friend gave me a COMPAQ Quick Restore cd-rom with WIN98, off course I have not been able to install it. The good thing is that:
- it started DOS
- the Dos is in disk a: and the original floppy disk is b: (but it doesn't work)
- now I have hope to make it run

The hard disk and the cd-rom are SCSI, the information I get after starting the machine is :
SCSI ID: 0 IBM DCAS-32160
SCSI ID: 6 NEC CD-ROM DRIVE: 464
I don't understand the meaning of this, I remember that to install SCSI cd-rom it needs a special driver that has to go into the boot disk.

I think I need to make a bootable cd-rom with all the right files and use that instead of the floppy disk. Can anyone help to to find the right files?? Do you know a web site that I can download what I need??

I hope you can help me, after several weeks reading information and looking for the right program I feel very bad, so I hope you can help me.

ciao from Italy

[jdc2000]

First, let me see if we can clarify one point. Is the floppy diskette DRIVE not working, or is the boot DISKETTE that you have not working? If the drive is not working, I'd recommend getting it working first. Check the data and power cables. If they are OK, try a new drive. Floppy drives are relatively inexpensive.

Since your hard disk and CD-ROM drive are SCSI, your BIOS probably does not have an option to boot from SCSI. If it does, you could try that except that the Win95 CD's are not bootable. You can download a Win98 boot diskette from http://www.bootdisk.com that should have the SCSI DOS drivers you need to allow access to your SCSI devices, but you need a working floppy drive for that.

[navid]

Hi jdc2000,

thank for your reply and your link to http://www.bootdisk.com (that's how I got here). What I meant is that the DRIVE a: is not working.

The data and power cable are ok. The SCSI cd-rom boots from a COMPAQ Quick Restore cd-rom with WIN98, so the cd-rom does boot from the cd-rom.

If I download from bootdisk.com the Win98 boot diskette and put it a cd (instead of diskette as you suggest), would it boot?? Do I need to make changes in the autoexec file??

I'm going to try this, any suggestio is welcome.

ciao from Italy

[jdc2000]

It is possible to make a bootable Win95 CD-ROM. Make sure that you include the other files needed to make your hard drive bootable:
FDISK
FORMAT.COM
SYS.COM
etc.

A search of these forums will probably locate the instructions needed to make a bootable CD.

Still, the easiest solution is to spend $10 US for a new floppy drive.

[navid]

Thank you jdc2000,

I bought a new floppy drive, opened the case and happily inserted it and got another errore:

02B3: INCORRECT DRIVE B TYPE - RUN SETUP

any suggestion??

ciao from Italy

[jdc2000]

Things to check:

Make sure that the floppy cable has the stripe going to pin 1 on the new floppy drive's connector. If the PC had only one floppy drive previously, make sure that you used the same connector on the cable to connect the new one.

The error you got would seem to indicate that the BIOS thinks the drive is the B: floppy drive instead of the A: drive. That can be caused by using the wrong connector on the floppy cable, if your cable has connections for more than one drive.

If your Compaq has a BIOS that is on the motherboard, you could try going to the BIOS setup and checking that the correct floppy drive settings are present.
Compaq usually uses the F10 key to get into BOIS setup during booting.

[kamyajohn]

am kamya john
you talkedof the bootable cd with that you are right .so go ahead and get the bootable CD it good and nice .but after you've done that go ahead and go in the setup(bios setup)and change the seting so that it boots first from the CD drive close the setup that is after you've saved what you've set close,and then restart the machine with the bootable cd inside. thank you and good bye
am kamya john from kampala/uganda/africa.bye




I'm trying to fix my old computer, a Pentium II 233 but I have big problems. I hope someone can help me:

1) I formatted the hard disk (because win95 had a virus) and now is empty
2) the floppy disk doesn't work, so I could not update the antivirus
3) as the floppy disk doesn't work, I can not install DOS or start a boot disk
4) a friend gave me a COMPAQ Quick Restore cd-rom with WIN98, off course I have not been able to install it. The good thing is that:
- it started DOS
- the Dos is in disk a: and the original floppy disk is b: (but it doesn't work)
- now I have hope to make it run

The hard disk and the cd-rom are SCSI, the information I get after starting the machine is :
SCSI ID: 0 IBM DCAS-32160
SCSI ID: 6 NEC CD-ROM DRIVE: 464
I don't understand the meaning of this, I remember that to install SCSI cd-rom it needs a special driver that has to go into the boot disk.

I think I need to make a bootable cd-rom with all the right files and use that instead of the floppy disk. Can anyone help to to find the right files?? Do you know a web site that I can download what I need??

I hope you can help me, after several weeks reading information and looking for the right program I feel very bad, so I hope you can help me.

ciao from Italy

[smurfy]

Making a bootable CD - http://www.nu2.nu/bootcd/

But you don't need that now that you've got a new floppy drive.

As jdc says, there are a couple of possible reasons for this error.
Floppy connected to wrong connector on floppy cable (it's not like an IDE cable, end one is "A", middle one is "B".
BIOS Setup is incorrect for floppy drive description and drive (i.e has "no A" and B = 3.5" or may even have B = 5.25"
OR
if you still have CD in drive, it seems to be grabbing A drive letter as part of it's boot code and may be forcing your correctly installed A drive to B drive letter?

[navid]

Thank you smurfy,

the floppy disk doesn't work yet, may be I can find a solution with your web site.

ciao
Navid