Week 5 Problem (Updated Punctuation)

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.win95.general.discussion (More info?)

You used the BIOS low-level format option which no longer appears in current
BIOSes.

You have undoubtedly screwed the hard drive up by doing that. If you want it
fixed, send it to the manufacturer. It will be much more expensive than
buying a new drive.

Excelstore drives are excellent, but you can get new drives very
inexpensively that will still run at the ATA33 speed that your system uses.

Eric,
http://www.pcbuyerbeware.co.uk/
http://www.sharedbirthday.co.uk/


Excelstor Hard Disk Drives: Google Search: http://tinyurl.com/5a3ku





"bryan" wrote:

> Trying to get help for this frustrating situation.
>
> Lord if you just help me out of this one I will never be bad again and
> try doing stuff I know little or nothing about.
>
> I promise Lord please please...
>
> My system was running just fine but was really slow and would
> occasionally hang unexpectedly.
>
> It is a pentium 133, w95b.
>
> It easily formatted before with the self starting oem w95 cd.
>
> But this time I have partitioned the drive and set one drive active as
> per the prompts.
>
> The c drive I formatted from the bios first, kind of by accident using
> the low level performat function.
>
> When I clicked on that a warning prompt said 'all info on this drive
> will be lost'.
>
> At this point I thought here is
> how the pros must format hard drives quickly and easily, so I pressed
> on.
>
> It only took a few seconds I think.
>
> Now when I put the w95 cd in and restart the system the setup feature is
> not auto-run and I receive the prompt 'invalid system disk'.
>
> I now put in the system floppy start up
> disk.
>
> I now receive prompt 'remove all disks and press any key to
> continue'.
>
> When I press any key I just get the arompt.
>
> I was told to partition and format the hard drive so I did that.
>
> I was told to add a line to config and autoexec files either on hard
> drive or the system start up disk regarding the cdrom drivers.
>
> I did that but still no luck.
>
> Now I get the prompt that my config file are corrupt in the first
> line.
>
> I was thinking, (I could be dangerous ha ha), that I have the
> setup w95 cd that I know works fine and I have the key for that as well,
> all legitimate.
>
> I have had this system for about 6 years now since brand
> new.
>
> I thought I could put the w95 cd on floppies but over fifty would
> be needed to do this.
>
> One of the other prompts I get when at the arompt and I try to boot
> the setup from cdrom, is 'cd01 not done reading yet'or something like that.
>
> So the real problem is the preformat cleared everything from drive c I
> know that now.
>
> So how do I get the proper config and autoexec files onto drive c so it
> can read cdrom and begin setup of w95?
>
> Sure I am no expert nor do I claim to be one but someone must know if it
> is futile to continue this in this loop or is that I am simply missing
> an entry or some simply tweak too get w95
> loaded and started on this system.
>
> Sorry for the long explanation, but if anyone can help me it is best to
> have all the info possibly available so I hope someone can cut through
> all this and kindly guide me in the right direction even if that means
> to scrap the system.
>
> If no one here can help me I would much appreciate that truth rather
> than trying another idea shot in the dark so to speak that further
> aggravates the situation as changing the config line has done.
>
> The reason I believe for this help board and others is to help people
> who don't know anything to get the help they need.
>
> As opposed to being led down the proverbial garden path.
>
> Here a tip but if you don't know what your doing well if you mess up you
> only have your self to blame.
>
> So many folks the world over may be taking advice here rather naively
> and messing up their system totally, then scraping them only to purchase
> new systems with microsoft software on it.
>
> More money for microsoft and the computer industry.
>
> Is this a microsoft board and is the advice free?
>
> Well folks you get what you pay for.
>
> Maybe I am wrong but many folks including myself want to believe
> the help here is genuine through and through but I feel I wasn't help
> resolve my problem at all only that I am more confused now than when I
> first posted for help.
>
> It sound like I have an ax to grind and maybe that is true.
>
> But I feel folks have more important things to do than get the run
> around online when sincerely needing help.
>
> At least I am for one.
>
> I must confess it hasn't been a total waste of my time though.
>
> On the bright side I read oodles of info on bootdisk.com and here.
>
> So maybe if I decide somewhere along the line to get into computers and
> become a PC Tech this experience will have been helpful.
>
> In the meantime though I am just hanging as to what to do next here.
>
> Sorry Lord I got diarrhea of the keyboard.
>
> I hope someone here is not afraid to take the time and help me resolve
> this problem in a positive and timely fashion. Thank you Lord.....Bryan
>
>