"grafxfriday" wrote in message
...
Thanks Rebel and Gary. I appreciate your help.
First Info then a couple questions..

Info Part I History
I have a single CD that says RESTORE CD(BOOTABLE CD)eMACHINES eTOWER433i
1998-99

Does it have a manual on it?

Error Messages:
200:BOOT FAILURE
204:REBOOT AND SELECT PROPER BOOT DEVICE OR INSERT BOOT
MEDIA IN SELECTED BOOT DEVICE.

Typical error. Means that no bootable device can be found, which makes sense
because your hard drives aren't being detected by BIOS. It's very simple,
really.

Initially the first few times I chose "1. Restore WIN 98 will format HDD"
without step by step confirmation (this last time around I could see the
errors). I hope restarting several times then turning the computer off
hasn't
caused more damage.

Info Part II New
Additionally, as I restarted the computer, the screen with basic info came
up. I
noticed 2 things;
1. Secondary Master ATAPI CDROM. Perhaps this is the reason the hard drive
is not
"C". I am tempted to change the BIOS settings to fix my drive error(it
seems
obvious, primary=c) but I am not positive of the settings.

It makes all the sense in the world that the Secondary Master is your
CD-ROM. What doesn't make sense is that your Primary Master is a CD-ROM or
other ATAPI device, instead of a hard drive.

2. PCI Onboard USB Controller, IRQ10
PCI Onboard Multimedia Device IRQ10. (Some of the PCI Devices have no IRQ)
Perhaps
these two devices shouldn't use the same IRQ number.

No big deal. There's this thing called IRQ Sharing. Windows uses it a lot
with PCI devices. And, as noted, it's definitely not the problem.

Questions /Summary
1. Auto-detection routine? How can I tell if my old computer has this?

If there is one, it will either have some way to initiate it in BIOS, or
resetting CMOS may be the way. Or you may have to look up the numbers for
the drive and input them manually. Gotta know the exact
make/model/version/whatever of the HD.

2. I will read up on how to find and configure CMOS. I do have dos
commands
and 5 books from the library(mostly for WIN 95) but actual configurations
are
hard to come by.

DOS won't help you, though Franc Zabkar may be able to. He's a wizard at
finding BIOS files and ripping into them, often finding hidden functions.
But you mostly gotta figure on what I described, above.

--
Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/User
http://grystmill.com