Disk Boot Failure, Insert system disk and press enter.

While I was on the computer someone hit the power off button. When I tried
to restart the computer I got the message, "Disk Boot Failure, Insert system
disk and press enter". I put the win98 system start-up floppy in and pressed
enter. It went through its sequence and then came up with this message:
"Windows 98 has detected that drive C does not contain a valid FAT or FAT32
partition. There are several possible causes." Then it lists 3 possible
causes. I ruled out numbers 2 and 3 which have to do with 3rd party software
and a virus. (I'm not running 3rd party software and I ran a virus scan
earlier that day.) Number 1 said "The drive may need to be partioned. To
create a partition on the drive run FDISK from the MS-DOS command prompt." I
went to drive c: and typed in fdisk and got a message that said: "No fixed
disks present."

I ran scandisk and it didn't find any errors.

I tried to run Setup from the original Win98 cd (not Win98SE) and I get a
message that says: "Cannot create a temporary directory. If you have HPFS or
NTFS installed on your hard drive you will need to create an MS-DOS boot
partion to set up Windows."

I have a Pentium II 400Mhz system running Win98se. What do I need to do to
get back into Windows.
Thanks, Marc

Go to the hard disk manufacturer's web site and download their diagnostic software
respective to your hard disk. After the test, you will know if the hard disk is bad or
not..

Quantum/Maxtor - PowerMax
http://www.maxtor.com/en/support/downloads/powermax.htm

Western Digital - Data LifeGuard Tools (DLGDiag)
http://support.wdc.com/download/

Hitachi/IBM - Drive Fitness Test (DFT)
http://www.hgst.com/hdd/support/download.htm

Seagate - SeaTools
http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools/

Fujitsu - Diagnostic Tool
http://www.fcpa.com/download/hard-drives/

Samsung - Disk manager
http://www.samsung.com/Products/Hard...ive/utilities/

Dave



"marcew" wrote in message
...
| While I was on the computer someone hit the power off button. When I tried
| to restart the computer I got the message, "Disk Boot Failure, Insert system
| disk and press enter". I put the win98 system start-up floppy in and pressed
| enter. It went through its sequence and then came up with this message:
| "Windows 98 has detected that drive C does not contain a valid FAT or FAT32
| partition. There are several possible causes." Then it lists 3 possible
| causes. I ruled out numbers 2 and 3 which have to do with 3rd party software
| and a virus. (I'm not running 3rd party software and I ran a virus scan
| earlier that day.) Number 1 said "The drive may need to be partioned. To
| create a partition on the drive run FDISK from the MS-DOS command prompt." I
| went to drive c: and typed in fdisk and got a message that said: "No fixed
| disks present."
|
| I ran scandisk and it didn't find any errors.
|
| I tried to run Setup from the original Win98 cd (not Win98SE) and I get a
| message that says: "Cannot create a temporary directory. If you have HPFS or
| NTFS installed on your hard drive you will need to create an MS-DOS boot
| partion to set up Windows."
|
| I have a Pentium II 400Mhz system running Win98se. What do I need to do to
| get back into Windows.
| Thanks, Marc

marcew wrote in message ...
While I was on the computer someone hit the power off button. When I tried
to restart the computer I got the message, "Disk Boot Failure, Insert system
disk and press enter". I put the win98 system start-up floppy in and pressed
enter. It went through its sequence and then came up with this message:
"Windows 98 has detected that drive C does not contain a valid FAT or FAT32
partition. There are several possible causes." Then it lists 3 possible
causes. I ruled out numbers 2 and 3 which have to do with 3rd party software
and a virus. (I'm not running 3rd party software and I ran a virus scan
earlier that day.) Number 1 said "The drive may need to be partioned. To
create a partition on the drive run FDISK from the MS-DOS command prompt." I
went to drive c: and typed in fdisk and got a message that said: "No fixed
disks present."

I ran scandisk and it didn't find any errors.

I tried to run Setup from the original Win98 cd (not Win98SE) and I get a
message that says: "Cannot create a temporary directory. If you have HPFS or
NTFS installed on your hard drive you will need to create an MS-DOS boot
partion to set up Windows."

I have a Pentium II 400Mhz system running Win98se. What do I need to do to
get back into Windows.
Thanks, Marc

Try TESTDISK.

http://www.cgsecurity.org/

"marcew" wrote in message
...
While I was on the computer someone hit the power off button. When I
tried
to restart the computer I got the message, "Disk Boot Failure, Insert
system
disk and press enter". I put the win98 system start-up floppy in and
pressed
enter. It went through its sequence and then came up with this message:
"Windows 98 has detected that drive C does not contain a valid FAT or
FAT32
partition. There are several possible causes." Then it lists 3 possible
causes. I ruled out numbers 2 and 3 which have to do with 3rd party
software
and a virus. (I'm not running 3rd party software and I ran a virus scan
earlier that day.) Number 1 said "The drive may need to be partioned. To
create a partition on the drive run FDISK from the MS-DOS command prompt."
I
went to drive c: and typed in fdisk and got a message that said: "No fixed
disks present."

I ran scandisk and it didn't find any errors.

I tried to run Setup from the original Win98 cd (not Win98SE) and I get a
message that says: "Cannot create a temporary directory. If you have HPFS
or
NTFS installed on your hard drive you will need to create an MS-DOS boot
partion to set up Windows."

I have a Pentium II 400Mhz system running Win98se. What do I need to do to
get back into Windows.
Thanks, Marc

Tend to trust scandisk, more than the setup for the operating system
concerning your problem. Scandisk checks the FAT first thing, then the
files. One or more of your boot files are missing from the FAT based on
that assumption. These include io.sys, command.com, and msdos.sys, assuming
you are not running a compressed "drive".. Simply copying these files from
another source does not put them on the proper location of the partition
(boot sector). Sys.com does this properly.

"marcew" wrote in message ...
While I was on the computer someone hit the power off button. When I tried
to restart the computer I got the message, "Disk Boot Failure, Insert system
disk and press enter". I put the win98 system start-up floppy in and pressed
enter. It went through its sequence and then came up with this message:
"Windows 98 has detected that drive C does not contain a valid FAT or FAT32
partition. There are several possible causes." Then it lists 3 possible
causes. I ruled out numbers 2 and 3 which have to do with 3rd party software
and a virus. (I'm not running 3rd party software and I ran a virus scan
earlier that day.) Number 1 said "The drive may need to be partioned. To
create a partition on the drive run FDISK from the MS-DOS command prompt." I
went to drive c: and typed in fdisk and got a message that said: "No fixed
disks present."

The first thing you need to determine, is if the BIOS is recognizing the drive.
If not, then it is likely a hardware problem.

What kind of drive is it and how big? Does it have a drive overlay installed?
Barring hardware problems, the symptoms you describe suggest a drive
overlay may have been trashed. It's loading, but is returning garbage to
the calling programs..


I ran scandisk and it didn't find any errors.

I'm thinking you ran scandisk on the RAM drive C:. Did it run at lightning
speed?

Bill, Scandisk did run at lightning speed. What does that mean?
My hard drive is a 30GB Maxtor. I went into the BIOS and ran HDD auto
Detect and it just hung like it wasn't finding anything.
Everything was working ok before the "accidental" power off.
Will reformatting the disk fix this? I have a recent system backup using
Colorado tape Backup. I back up everything including the registry once a week.

"Bill Blanton" wrote:

"marcew" wrote in message ...
While I was on the computer someone hit the power off button. When I tried
to restart the computer I got the message, "Disk Boot Failure, Insert system
disk and press enter". I put the win98 system start-up floppy in and pressed
enter. It went through its sequence and then came up with this message:
"Windows 98 has detected that drive C does not contain a valid FAT or FAT32
partition. There are several possible causes." Then it lists 3 possible
causes. I ruled out numbers 2 and 3 which have to do with 3rd party software
and a virus. (I'm not running 3rd party software and I ran a virus scan
earlier that day.) Number 1 said "The drive may need to be partioned. To
create a partition on the drive run FDISK from the MS-DOS command prompt." I
went to drive c: and typed in fdisk and got a message that said: "No fixed
disks present."

The first thing you need to determine, is if the BIOS is recognizing the drive.
If not, then it is likely a hardware problem.

What kind of drive is it and how big? Does it have a drive overlay installed?
Barring hardware problems, the symptoms you describe suggest a drive
overlay may have been trashed. It's loading, but is returning garbage to
the calling programs..


I ran scandisk and it didn't find any errors.

I'm thinking you ran scandisk on the RAM drive C:. Did it run at lightning
speed?

"marcew" wrote in message ...
Bill, Scandisk did run at lightning speed. What does that mean?

When you boot with the "Emergency Boot Disk" it creates a RAM
drive to hold some of the DOS utils. It gives this drive the letter following
HD letter assignments. If the RAM drive gets C:, that means DOS isn't
enumerating any HD volumes. Running a Scandisk on a RAM drive
is very fast since the contents of the drive are held in memory.

My hard drive is a 30GB Maxtor. I went into the BIOS and ran HDD auto
Detect and it just hung like it wasn't finding anything.
Everything was working ok before the "accidental" power off.
Will reformatting the disk fix this?

If the BIOS isn't detecting the drive you won't be able to do anything with
it. (not that a format is needed, or the answer.)

You might slave it to another *compatible* system, to see if it's the drive that
is faulty, or if it's something else. Not knowing if there is an overlay installed,
just check if the new host's BIOS detects the drive. Don't let the host OS boot.

If the new host system's BIOS doesn't detect the drive, then you probably
have a faulty drive. If OTOH, it does detect it, you may have deeper problems
such as the motherboard's IDE controller, the BIOS, or anything else in the
chain..(all of which is beyond the scope of this poster on how to test)..


I have a recent system backup using
Colorado tape Backup. I back up everything including the registry once a week.

That's good news.. Hopefully at the most it is the drive only. You might also try
a different cable..but that's probably grasping for a last straw...

Get some hard disk drive diagnostic software from the www site of the hard
disk drive manufacturer. This will assist in tracking down the source of
the problem. If the diagnostic software doesn't see the disk at all then
you have a catastrophic disk drive failure. More likely, it will see the
disk but indicate some type of communication problem.
--
Jeff Richards
MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)
"marcew" wrote in message
...
Bill, Scandisk did run at lightning speed. What does that mean?
My hard drive is a 30GB Maxtor. I went into the BIOS and ran HDD auto
Detect and it just hung like it wasn't finding anything.
Everything was working ok before the "accidental" power off.
Will reformatting the disk fix this? I have a recent system backup using
Colorado tape Backup. I back up everything including the registry once a
week.

"Bill Blanton" wrote:

"marcew" wrote in message
...
While I was on the computer someone hit the power off button. When I
tried
to restart the computer I got the message, "Disk Boot Failure, Insert
system
disk and press enter". I put the win98 system start-up floppy in and
pressed
enter. It went through its sequence and then came up with this
message:
"Windows 98 has detected that drive C does not contain a valid FAT or
FAT32
partition. There are several possible causes." Then it lists 3
possible
causes. I ruled out numbers 2 and 3 which have to do with 3rd party
software
and a virus. (I'm not running 3rd party software and I ran a virus
scan
earlier that day.) Number 1 said "The drive may need to be partioned.
To
create a partition on the drive run FDISK from the MS-DOS command
prompt." I
went to drive c: and typed in fdisk and got a message that said: "No
fixed
disks present."

The first thing you need to determine, is if the BIOS is recognizing the
drive.
If not, then it is likely a hardware problem.

What kind of drive is it and how big? Does it have a drive overlay
installed?
Barring hardware problems, the symptoms you describe suggest a drive
overlay may have been trashed. It's loading, but is returning garbage to
the calling programs..


I ran scandisk and it didn't find any errors.

I'm thinking you ran scandisk on the RAM drive C:. Did it run at
lightning
speed?

I posted that 24hours ago as the first replier to Marcew !

Dave




"Jeff Richards" wrote in message
...
| Get some hard disk drive diagnostic software from the www site of the hard
| disk drive manufacturer. This will assist in tracking down the source of
| the problem. If the diagnostic software doesn't see the disk at all then
| you have a catastrophic disk drive failure. More likely, it will see the
| disk but indicate some type of communication problem.
| --
| Jeff Richards
| MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)

A 30 Gb drive on Windows 98? Are you running the BIOS
extender from Maxtor? If yes, then the partition is unique;
requires the special software from Maxtor to restore things
that Microsoft utilities do not understand.

marcew wrote:
Bill, Scandisk did run at lightning speed. What does that mean?
My hard drive is a 30GB Maxtor. I went into the BIOS and ran HDD
auto Detect and it just hung like it wasn't finding anything.
Everything was working ok before the "accidental" power off.
Will reformatting the disk fix this? I have a recent system
backup using Colorado tape Backup. I back up everything including
the registry once a week.