Computer won't boot!!!!

Computer crashed, reformatted hard drive found that the IDE cable that was in the computer was cracked so I replaced that and now the computer comes up to the "keyboard detected" The Floppy light comes on , the keyboard lights flash then it recognizes that a hard drive is installed but won't boot....

If I go into setup it shows a floppy and a hard drive installed. Someone told me to put the Win 98 cd in the cd rom and boot from it, but how do I do that when the cd driver is not installed ??? Have someone waiting to buy this and it was working fine till now! AAHHHH! Help!

Would appreciate any help!
thanks

 

use the win98 bootup disc which will load cd drivers and you can boot from the win98 cd from there.
So what exactly is happening? After the POST hit F8 and choose "step by step confirmation" to see what causing the stop. Is the IDE connected with pin 1 (the red strip) on the right side of the ribben?

 

yeah, the ribbon is in right...and I put the win98 boot up floppy in and the drive won't pick it up.
The floppy light comes on and then won't boot?

Basically, I reformatted the hard drive then before I could reload windows, it pulled this...

I turn it on and it reads that the keyboard is detected, then shows that the hard drive is installed, shows the "hit F1 for set up then says "please wait......." and does nothing....
I am kind of nervous!!!

Any suggestions?
Thanks for you help
Brandi

 

Hello Brandieast,

Your best bet is to clear the CMOS or BIOS then boot the computer and go into the BIOS setup and reenter the information. Make sure that the hard drive is not connected during the setup process. You will want to be sure that the boot sequence is set to floppy drive first. Set the Primary Master Primary Slave,Secondary Master, Secondary Slave all to Auto. After you have entered all the pertinent info, save and exit the CMOS setup. Turn off the computer and connect the hard drive. Reboot and see if it will POST and recognize the hard drive. If it does, shut down the computer again. Insert the Win98 startup disk into the floppy and turn the machine on. If all goes well the boot disk should give you the option to "start computer with CDRom support along with other options. Select this option. You should eventually come to an A:\> prompt. Type format c: /s. This should format the hard drive for Windows installation.

If this doesn't work post back with more info about your system specs. Good luck. KW1

 

When you say the floppy drive light comes on....does it go out? or does it stay lit? If it stays lit, you've got the floppy cable on backwards......

 

Received PM from Brandi, floppy light does go out.

 

Have a 486...(i know they suck) Anyway, I found that there is a pin on the MoBo for the floppy and that was why I could not get it to boot from the floppy. I took the hard drive out (THanks to Kilowat1 for the advice) and put in in a different machine, and was able to install windows from floppy set up then the cd rom. Put the HD back in the 486 and went into bios setup to disable floppy and boot from c: only, and pulled ribbon cables from MOBO. Put CD in, turned on power and the computer goes thru bios "thing" says keyboard is detected then shows that the HD is installed then NOTHING! ~ just blinking cursor. Am I just to stupid to do this or what? I thought I had a little knowledge but JEEZZZZZZ... I am going CRAZY! Thanks for any advice you can give me.