[WEB4LIB] Re: Two pcs, same symptoms, won't boot...

[Debra Lords]

It sounds like either your Media descriptor byte may have gotten
corrupted or your boot sector is screwed up.

Also, when you format the drive, start with an fdisk /MBR to
clean off the boot record.  Then use fdisk again to wipe out all
partitions and re-create them.  Only then do a full low level
disk format for DOS, being sure to add the system files.  Once
that is done, if you have access to Norton Utilities for DOS, run
that to be sure the boot sector and Media descriptor byte on your
drive isn't ruined.  Even a low level format won't necessarily
fix that, but Norton sometimes can.

Hope this helps.

Dan Lester wrote:
> 
> At 02:26 PM 12/20/99 -0800, Catherine Buck Morgan wrote:
> >The first machine I was able to take out of production. I've stripped
> >everything down to the operating system, and then upgraded it to Win98.
> >It still will not boot cold.
> 
> When something is this funky, I'd take it down to a low level disk
> format.  That is the only way to start it totally clean.  If that doesn't
> do it, you have a problem with the motherboard or the CPU or the RAM, most
> likely.  If necessary, you can start swapping those pieces.
> 
> Good luck and happy holidays
> 
> dan
> 
> --
> Good, Fast, and Cheap: Which two of the three would you like?
> Dan Lester, 3577 East Pecan, Boise, ID 83716 USA 208-383-0165
> dan at 84.com   http://www.84.com/  http://www.postcard.org/

-- 

Debbie

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Debra Lords			Experience is what you
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