Will it boot to *anything*? From what you said, it won't, it can't read the
HD. In that case, it is almost certainly a bad hard drive, though it might
be a disconnected cable or a problem in the motherboard. Whatever, it's not
a problem with the software. It's not even able to get far enough to read
the software.

When you use the diagnostic tools DO NOT fix anything. That will almost
certainly cause data corruption. Simply use tools to determine the health of
the drive. If the tools can't find the drive, then you should look into the
possibility of the data cable, or power supply, or bad motherboard. Another
way to determine what's up is to put the drive into another computer and see
if it can be read there. Assuming it's the most obvious problem, a bad
drive, you'll need to install a new hard drive. Recovery of the data on the
old drive is probably not possible, at least not by the average user.
Requires special tools and expertise. Unfortunately, again assuming it's the
HD, any recovery is likely to be very expensive. It is for this eventuality,
more than any other, that backups are mandatory for critical, irreplaceable
data. Even if you do try to "fix" the drive, in an effort to recover data,
don't plan on any further regular use of that drive. Once a problem pops up
in a hard drive, I consider that drive to be dead, the only remaining issue
being whether the data can be recovered.

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

"astroview120mm" wrote in message
...
Thank you, but is there a solution for computers that will not boot to the
GUI?

"Ben Myers" wrote in message
...
"astroview120mm" wrote in message
...
My windows 98 computer won't boot because it can not read drive C. Any
advice on how to fix this problem would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in
advance.
-astroview120mm

Most hard drive manufacturers have diagnostic software available
for download.

Maxtor and Seagate http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/
Western Digital
http://support.wdc.com/download/inde...n&pid=999&swid

Ben