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Win98SE Won't Boot

Discussion in 'Legacy Windows' started by Cr4wford, 2004/01/10.

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  1. 2004/01/10
    Cr4wford

    Cr4wford Inactive Thread Starter

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    I was ripping one of my CDs with Musicmatch Jukebox when Windows 98 starts acting funny, giving me illegal operation errors and such, and I figured I have to reboot, nothing out of the normal. But when I bootup, it shows the bios screen, then when it would normally go to the Windows 98 boot up screen, it's just a black screen with a blinking cursor in the upper left hand corner. Odd. So I boot up with the floppy boot disk. Once I've booted up, I type "C: ", as C: is my boot partition and the partition where I installed Windows, and then type "dir" and it says:

    Invalid Media Type Reading Drive C
    Abort, Retry, Fail?

    Hm. So I abort, start fdisk, and press 4 to display my partition information, and it says that the system on Partition 1, Drive C:, is Unknown. I don't know what I did, I don't know what's wrong, but my computer evidently doesn't recognize what's on my C: partition. Is there anything I can do, besides installing Windows 98SE over itself? Thank you.
     
    Cr4wford,
    #1
  2. 2004/01/10
    broni

    broni Moderator Malware Analyst

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    Issue:

    Invalid Media Type reading drive C

    Cause:

    This can be caused by one of three following reasons:

    1. The hard disk drive does not have a valid format.
    2. The hard disk drive has been fdisked but not formatted.
    3. The hard disk drive is bad.

    Solution:

    The hard disk drive does not have a valid format.

    If you are receiving this message when your computer boots it is likely that it is unable to read the format on the hard disk drive.

    * Boot from a bootable floppy diskette
    * Once at the A:\> attempt to type C: and press enter.
    * If you do not receive this error message type the following:

    A: <press enter>
    fdisk /mbr <press enter>
    Sys c: <press enter>
    Once you have received the message System Transferred reboot the computer and your issue should be resolved.
    * If you receive the same Invalid Media Type reading type reading drive C: it is likely that the format on the hard disk drive is invalid and it is recommended that you re-format the hard disk drive. By typing the following after booting from a bootable floppy diskette:

    Format c: <press enter>

    This will erase all of your information on the hard disk drive however will recreate the format and should allow your hard disk drive to be read again. If during the format you receive messages about bad or missing sectors or allocation units refer to document CH000180

    The hard disk drive has been fdisked but not formatted:

    If you have recently fdisked and deleted and recreated the partition on the hard disk drive before the hard disk drive can be read you must format the hard disk drive by typing the following after booting from a bootable floppy diskette:

    Format c: <press enter>

    This will erase all of your information on the hard disk drive however will recreate the format and should allow your hard disk drive to be read again. If during the format you receive messages about bad or missing sectors or allocation units refer to document CH000180

    The hard disk drive is bad:

    If you have deleted and recreated the partition and then formatted the hard disk drive but did not receive any message about missing sectors or allocation units and continue to experience the same issue it is likely that the computer hard disk drive unfortunately is bad.
     
    broni,
    #2


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  4. 2004/01/10
    markp62

    markp62 Geek Member Alumni

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    Bootdisk's, you can download a file that will create a bootdisk for you.
    It would not hurt to run scandisk off of the floppy, and do this command at the prompt, fdisk /mbr. It will appear to do nothing, it rewrites the Master Boot Record.
    If no results, it seems to me that you need to Fdisk, then format the drive before installing windows.
     
    markp62,
    #3
  5. 2004/01/10
    Cr4wford

    Cr4wford Inactive Thread Starter

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    Thanks

    Thanks for your guys' help. After fdisk /mbr and sys C: didn't work, I just decided to format C:. The only files I had on there were the Windows operating system files anyways, all of my other files were on a different partition. So now I'm reinstalling Windows, and hopefully it'll work out. Thanks again.
     
    Cr4wford,
    #4
  6. 2004/01/11
    merlin

    merlin Inactive

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    Your newly reinstalled Windows OS does not know about your
    apps installed on the other disk/partition, so you may have
    problems running many them until they are reinstalled.
    regards
     
    merlin,
    #5
  7. 2004/01/11
    tel33

    tel33 Inactive

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    Try this link for Testdisk

    http://www.cgsecurity.org

    Shame you cleaned it, Testdisk is a fantastic program that can save your bacon many times over.

    It allows you to recover lost partitions with ease.

    Oh well too late now.

    Regards
    tel33
     
    tel33,
    #6
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