Messed up 98 Boot

[p75]

Hi. I have an old computer with windows 98SE on that i use for playing old games and was working fine. 2 days ago I decided to download windows 7 RC and I put in an old 60GB hardrive to try it out. Well it has now done something to my windows 98 and I can not get it to load. All I get is this screen URL=http://s17.photobucket.com/albums/b66/maxjames/?action=view&current=98sebootproblemedit.jpg]

[/URL] when I boot it on it's own. I should of unpluged it when installing windows 7 but forgot all about it. I did download vista boot loader and removed the windows 7 from it but did nothing. I am not familiar with the boot system on 7 or to much on 98.

Is there a way I can get the files from the net, to repair it with from another OS? or is there a boot repair programe for 98?

I have already tried 98 boot disk and no luck. Can't get into safe mode and tried to restore registry, there was no good backup unfortunately.

Any other way, or is it totally screwed up?

 

[p75]

For some reson this is not allowing me to edit my own post. So here is the direct link to the picture.

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b66/maxjames/98sebootproblemedit.jpg

 

[4Ryan6]

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/69013

http://www.bootdisk.com

 

[p75]

Thanks but i'm not sure what else to do. I downloaded a boot disk and did the fix mbr thing but it's still the same.

 

[Zoron]

You'll have to reinstall 98. Windows 7 overwrote 98's bootloader with it's own. Removing the menu entry for Windows 7 doesn't remove the bootloader. The bootloader for Win 7 won't recognize any OS below XP I believe... though it's possible that 2K or NT 4.0 might be recognized. You may even have to delete the partition and recreate it to be able to boot to 98... since 98 won't have a clue about any other bootloaders with the exception of Win 95.

 

[p75]

Thanks Zoron, that sort of makes sense.

Anyway though I would see if i could sort it. So i put the 98SE disk in as if I was going to install a fresh copy. there was an option where i could save all my old files and system setting. So did a new install and it's all working again ok. Most of my old files are all back and working. There are a few programs I need to reinstall though as they don't work anymore.

So if you screw up your 98SE, try what I did. 98SE is still very good for playing old games but outdated as a normal OS.

 

[Zoron]

If you're playing any DOS-based games... you could also use DOSBox... it works great with some really old games for Apogee. Even under Vista x64, the games run and even have sound for the ones that did.