[System asks for boot disk on start up]

Emachine with Windows 98, turn it on the Emachine Logo comes up then goes to a black screen with system things on it. Finally asks for a reboot disk in the A drive - all I have is a restore CD. I have tried putting the CD in the drive, turning on the computer, then it asks for which reload to use. Book says to use #1 enter 1 - error messages come up through out the whole restore process. Then it says it's done and to restart, then the same Logo appears.

 

This sounds like it wants a win98 bootdisk in drive A:. Why it's asking for a bootdisk in drive A, I dunno'. Do you have a working win98 bootdisk? Knowing that OEM restore procedures vary, this may, even, be a case of a combination of a "special floppy" to be used with your restore cd. Again, I dunno'. Reguardless, Windowsbbs "Archives of past posts" are full of links and instructions for either making, copying or downloading a win98 bootdisk, should this be the case.

What emachine make and model of computer do have? "OEM Restore Steps" are all varied and your description was not very specific. I would like to check up on the "Requirements and procedure" for your particular system. (Curious about what Step #1 is). Your support site should have such. "What was your original problem, errors quoted please , that has made you resort to your restore disk? Does your computer see the harddrive c:? In otherwords can you get to a c: prompt?

----This was a bit of a puzzlement for myself-----

Book says to use #1 enter 1 - error messages???
Does this mean you
*chose option 1,
*entered (pressed the number) a 1
*and after that got error messages
or
*got 1 error message

In either case what is Step #1 and what was the error, quoted?

 

Most machines have a boot order.

Some ( Like my Hitachi Visionbook ) have a specific boot target and will not search beyond that specific boot device.

If someone messed with the boot order/target in BIOS or the BIOS was reset this could cause the issue you are having.

Edit - It may be set to boot from floppy - or it is unable to find the O/S system files (msdos.sys io.sys - hidden and command.com) on the HDD, so it is reverting to the floppy.

 

emachine restore CD is bootable CDROM which replaces OS, drivers etc. to get you going again...

...usually at the expense of everything which was on C: beforehand - "reloads" the computer back to out of the box state

sometimes there are two CDs involved

no idea about menu options though - sounds like this restore CD might have a "lesser" option

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this sounds like the computer's booting from the CDROM OK

but copying the files from CD onto HDD is going wrong

particularly, copying the system files onto the HDD is misfiring

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would be very interested to know what the options on the restore CD are! (though I would have thought that any of them would replace the system files. Is there any sense in *not* re-sys-ing the HDD - if it's got to the point where a restore disk has to be used )

would also be interesting to know (roughly) how many error messages, and are they all the same type of error

- masses and masses => none of the files are copying OK
- less than this => something else

==

this is the manufacturer's branding in the BIOS screen if I understand correctly?

best wishes, HJ

PS sorry I don't know whether it's a straight image on the CD, or whether the files are compressed into an archive somehow