Boot failure after power supply install ...

My son gave me his HP machine (Windows 98) and no system disk.

Well, the power supply failed. I found one one the Net and replaced it.

In the boot phase, the power went down in the area. I don't know if that made any difference, but anyway, when I finally pushed the start button, I got a boot failure message:

"DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER. "

I have no such disk.

I tried a Norton Emergency Boot Disk, and get an A:/> prompt and that is it. When I try to get to Windows I get a variety of messages.

I did a "rescue" search on this board, but none of the solutions seemed to help.

If I go to the safe mode, I get a a enter command message which I have no clue as to what it means.

Seems to me that if there was supposed to be a disk, then any such disk might work, but maybe it is not all that difficult.

BTW, the power supply did not have a 3 pin fan connector, but I am sure that makes no difference and did not have anything to do with this problem ...

Thanks for your interest, patience, and help in advance.

Hive, one of this village's idiots.

 

"DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER. "

It appears the hard drive's boot sector is corrupt. Also could mean the HD has crashed. A power failure at boot time can cause either issue. The only way I know to find out is to locate a 98 system boot disk. You very well could also need the 98 CD to reinstall Windows. This first thing though is to see if you can access the C: drive. There are Fdisk command's that can restore the boot sector. It works sometimes, just BEWARE you may have to start from scratch using it. With a Windows 98 boot disk with Fdisk,
you can try Fdisk /MBR. (master boot recoird). Use at your own risk. What I would do FIRST is run Fdisk and see if it sees the drive at all.
1) Locate a Windows 98 boot disk and 98 Windows CD.
2) Run Fdisk to check the drive status.
3) Depends on the outcome of #2, Run scandisk C:
Post back with the results if you need more help.

 

You'll need to run command 3 times.

Fdisk /MBR. (master boot record).
Fdisk /MBR.
Fdisk /MBR.