ERD hangs when starting computer

1. Problem on my Cyrix 233 computer with W98. When using ERD (emergency rescue disk) and select “start with CD support” the computer continues but hangs immediately after the two lines:
Mode prepare code page function complete
Mode select code page function complete.

2. If used on another computer the same ERD goes the extra 10 lines to display the required A prompt!

3. An expert told me the problem might result from fitting a CDR-W some 3 years ago and naming it D: drive, pushing the existing CDRom to E: and suggested updating the ERD. I tried updating but although Add/Remove asks me to load the original CD it cannot produce a new ERD because it cannot find several files in C: or D: drive. I visited Bootdisk.com and copied several of its bootdisks but none is successful and others hang at the same two lines.

4. Also I note that my C:\Autoexec.bat file is blank whilst that in the ERD is quite long and has two lines similar to those above at which the computer hangs. Also whilst the C:\config. Sys at 1kb consists of only 2 lines that in the ERD at 1kb has several lines including the line:

device=btcdrom.sys /D:mscd001

Fortunately my computer boots up okay but obviously if I ever needed to use the ERD I would not be able to get CD support.. Can the problem be remedied?

Regards,
Pat Alley

 

I suggest no changes to either Autoexec.Bat files. Windows doesn't need it, but the ERD does.
Here is something else you may want to know about the ERD. It creates what is called a Ramdrive. It is like a hard drive, but exists in your RAM. When you see the message 'diagnostic tools loaded successfully', files are already extracted from the Erd.Cab file on the floppy and copied into the Ramdrive. This Ramdrive is assigned the next letter in sequence after the hard drives. If all you have is C:, it would get D:.
This would bump up the drive letters for the CD drives.
Now to the problem, it seems to be machine specific. I suggest something simple concerning how the drives are connected and jumpered.
Perhaps they were set up this way?
This method involves both CD drives on the same IDE controller, or the same connection ribbon.
A CDRW is better used as a Master drive, while CDROM works fine as a slave. What I am suggesting is looking at how the ribbons are connected first.
The CDRW should be connected in the middle, the ROM should be connected at the end.
The jumpers I mentioned are on the end of the drives, near the ribbon connection. The CDRW jumper, by default, may be set to the CS [Cable Select] position. Then means the position of the ribbon connection determines if Master or Slave. I would suggest changing it to Master [diagram on top of drive], and have it connected to the middle.
Check the CDROM, except that it is one the end, and jumper it to Slave. This drive may already be set that way.

 

Hello Mark,
Thankyou for your reply and the information. My CDROM is 36x ATAPI/E –IDE interface and the CDR-W is a Traxdata. Discounting the correctly polarised 36 wire common ribbon and power cables between the two, the only adjustment is via a separate jumper connector which has 3 possible positions and as viewed from the rear is CS/S/M. Mine is jumpered across M (RH viewed from the rear) which according to the instruction book means the hard disk is Primary Master, the CDROM primary slave and CDR-W is Secondary Master. Incidentally in all three possible modes the hard disk is annotated as a Primary Master. I mention this because after booting up, the hard disk was indeed as such but the CDROM was Secondary Slave i.e.
Primary Master - User
Slave - Unused
Secondary Master – CDROM (which I assumed was the CDR-W)
Slave - CDROM (which I asumed was the CDROM)
I made a record of this and all BIOS settings.
I nominated the CDR-W to be D: drive and CDROM to become E (formerly D

I have to say thereafter, whilst the CDR-W worked perfectly, the CDROM became somewhat tempermental, often needing the button pressing several times to open it up as though the mechanism was stiff and often refusing to recognise certain CDs, particularly bootable ones like the W98 CD. After exercising it once or twice it seemed to free up and I did consider oiling it but wasn’t sure where to apply the oil! However not recognising certain CDs remains to this day.

When I re-checked all the wires plus the BIOS settings today I found things had changed to:
Primary Master - Unused
Slave - User
Secondary Master – CDROM (which I assumed was the CDR-W)
Slave - CDROM (which I asumed was the CDROM)

I knew I would not have made a mistake over the settings some 3 years ago so I changed the hard disk back to the original setting of Primary Master. When I rebooted I got an immediate warning from Auto-Detect and invited to change it back to Primary Slave: after which it booted up okay. How it had changed itself in the intervening years I have no idea but I do know I would not have recorded it wrongly at any time!!

Regards,
Pat

 

It sounds like the CDROM is dying. I had one with the same problems, if it got the CD spinning up to speed it was fine. I finally replaced it with a $20 CDROM.
Have you tried the ERD without the CDROM connected?

 

Thankyou Mark.
1. I removed the power from the CDROM and tried the startup disk. No change from before!

2. The computer is 6 years old so I don’t think buying another CDROM is viable. For one reason or another an up-to-date CDROM would most probably not be compatible for one of a thousand reasons!.

3. Reading through Microsoft’s Knowledge Base Article 296532 mentioned alternative methods of making an up-to-date Start disk using MSDOS and FAT32, the latter through the FAT32ebd file on the W98 CD. Sadly the resultant floppies also hung halfway to the A prompt..

4. However using the W98 CD stirred my memory. Since all I want is an alternative method of booting into W98 when all else fails I remembered that the W98 CD is bootable. So I went into the “Advanced CMOS Setup” page in BIOS and changed the order of Boot drive into Floppy-CDROM-hard disk. Then using the W98 CD it booted up into W98. Problem solved! or isn't it?

Regards,
Pat

 

I would say the problem is solved for you. You can boot from the CD, and install windows if needed. I can't blame you for not wanting to put any money into it.
BTW, as long as the CDROM is an IDE device, it will work.
I have an old computer [200 MHz], and the only things I bought for it were things that could be used in another. When the video card died, I took out all the drives [floppy and IDE], and used them as parts in another computer.
FYI, if the hard drive was partitioned, you could have the windows setup files copied onto one of the partitions. Then any boot floppy can be used to get the system going enough to start setup.
You could create a floppy that will give you enough of an OS to do this by opening a dos window and use this command, sys c: a: to transfer system files from the hard drive to the floppy, or format a floppy in Windows Explorer, and check the option to transfer system files. This one would not load CD drivers, or the Ramdrive I mentioned earlier.

 

Thankyou Mark for all those facts. Taking up the point you made, are you in effect saying it is possible to:

Get into Windows 98 (via the W98 bootable setup disk), go into MSDOS, load the ERD and at the (C:\>Windows) prompt change this to (A:>format)?

If my interpretation is correct, then say one has already downloaded the “advisor.exe” program from belarc.com to get all your computer’s specifications in one file, and/or better still downloaded "wdrvback1.exe" from jem-mar.com to derive a folder full of all your driver programs, all of which you could have copied to a CD previously; it seems to me that one is well on the way to a clean boot Setup without the problem of:

1. Having to partition the hard disk and lose the advantages of FAT32.
2. Placing the Setup file on the partition.
3. Having to sort out all those driver files later.

Regards,
Pat

 

Mark,
The reason for my previous post is that I would like to carry out a clean re-install of W98 in the hopes that the ERD problem plus others may disappear. I stress “may” but perhaps worth a try. However I would first like to confirm a few points with you.

1. Assuming an ERD, with f.disk and format included, would it be correct to say that f.disk will allow partitioning, or if the FAT32 is to be retained then A:\format will clear and format the hard disk?

2. Once formatted, is one asked to load the W98 CD or are more DOS commands needed?

3. Once W98 is loaded is it then one loads the requisite drivers? I assume Windows already recognises the CDROM and monitor since they were used to load W98?

4. Please mention any other points I may have missed since I don’t suppose its that simple?

Regards,
Pat

 

When you first run Fdisk, you are presented with the question to enable large disk support. If you type a Y you get FAT32, type a N and you get FAT16.
Fdisk is used to create and delete partitions. If you wanted more partitions that one, you would set the size of the Primary and let it be active. Then you would create an Extended Partition, and let it take the rest of the drive space. Inside of the Extended, you create Logical partitions, letting one take all the space of the Extended, or create more that one Logical, setting the size [by percentage is easiest] of them. After exiting Fdisk, You Must Reboot.
Then format all the drives.
In case you are wondering, yes, after setting up the Logical Partitions and you do not like the current size, you can use Fdisk to delete and create with new sizes with affecting the Primary.

Once the drive is formatted using no additional switches, the only thing on the drive is the FAT [File Allocation Table], it is invisible to you. It will not boot in the condition, an OS must be loaded first. Dos does not need to be installed if you are planning to install windows. It will install some dos on it's own.

Windows has it's own IDE drivers for the CD, but only for reading CD's. The driver it uses for the display is a generic VGA driver, usually not the correct one, you end up with only 16 colors, not 16 bit color. This is usually what throws people when they try to up the resolution, and it will not go up.
The very first thing to be installed is the motherboard drivers, else not even the video drivers will install properly.

 

Thankyou Mark for all that information. I have now done my first clean install and all is now working fine.

Kind regards,
Pat Alley

 

Now that is good news!