Win98 reinstall: possible floppy drive & CD-Rom problem

[BarryMurphy]

I am planning to do a format and reinstall of Windows 98 SE on a Pentium 166. The reason I am doing this is that an error occurred in Explorer.exe after I upgraded IE 4.0 to IE 5.5, and now Windows will not load. My problem is that when I try to boot the PC from the boot disc that I created, the startup screen shows the following message:

Floppy disc(s) fail (C0)
Press F1 to continue, DEL to enter SETUP.

I know that I can change the boot priorities in the system bios to CD-Rom first, but I have a concern with this option. There is only one hard drive in the PC, so the drive letter of my CD-Rom must be D. However, I find that when I boot up to a command prompt, and then type, “d:” and press enter, a message saying, “Invalid drive specification” is displayed, and the C prompt remains.

I am hesitant to type “FORMAT C:\” if there might be a problem gaining access to the floppy drive or CD-Rom.
We must become the change we want to see. (Ghandi)

 

[edfair]

Going to DOS prompt doesn't load the device drivers for the CD. They are loaded in config.sys and autoexec.bat (versions for DOS).
Going to a DOS window allows CD access on D: since windows has established the access.
You probably would be best serverd downloading a floppy with CD rom support from someplace like

http://www.bootdisk.com.

Ed Fair
unixstuff@juno.com
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[Mulga]

The message you are getting indicates that either the floppy disc or the floppy drive are dud, with that exact message it is probably the drive. You can test your ability to boot from the cd, just set the BIOS to boot from CD first and try it with the installation CD, you do not have to proceed with the installation at this stage.
Meanwhile, do as Ed suggests and download a boot floppy with CD support, if this also does not work it is a good indication your floppy drive is dead. All things are possible except skiing through a revolving door.

 

[ceh4702]

I have seen win98 SE lose the CDROM when it reboots on its own. Then it asks you where some CAB file is it is looking for and you can not find it. I just keep loading windows and skip that part. It is a real pain. If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.

 

[DBSSP]

If the cable has been attached to the floppy the wrong way then you could also recieve this error. When you do a format c: the computer loses all sense of drive naming, other than provided by the bios and bootdisk. So, you should have a:,c:,and d:. If the D: doesn't work then your boot disk either assigns a different drive letter, or the cdrom driver is not loading at all. I also recommend downloading a new bootdisk, and try booting from the cdrom after formatting. If it still will not boot correctly from the cdrom, then get a new floppy drive (assuming this one is snuffed)and then boot from the disk and install. The only way formatting is detrimental to your PC is if you have important info you need to keep. Otherwise, there would be no reason to be hesitant as long as you have an OS to install and all the main device drivers. If you have any questions, just let me know. Hope this helps!

Jay

"Jeezus-sqeezits Bob!"