Problem when booting

Hi all.

I have a rather aging PC that I've owned from new in 1999. The processor is a Celeron 533MHz and the mainboard says that it is a Legend QDI World Class Mainboard - Advance 9. www.qdigrp.com

The hard drive is 6.4gb and was very nearly full. So, after dumping a lot of the stuff onto DVD, I decided to proceed with reformatting the drive and re-installing Windows 98 from the original Windows 98 CD that came with the PC.

I managed to reformat the drive, using (as I recall) NTFS and enabling large disc support, but when I come to the stage where Windows needs to install from the inserted CD, the message on screen says something like 'Unsupported system disk. Please replace the disk and strike any key.' Whatever I do I just keep getting this message and the words abort, retry, fail.

After a while I decide to put the 6.4gb hard drive into another machine and see if I could format and install Windows that way. I inserted the hard drive as the main drive, reformatted and installed windows no problem at all.

I Placed this hard drive back into the problem machine and rebooted. All seems well until the booting process gets to a certain stage, when I am greeted with the same old message. Nothing I do seems to help.

Looking back at the original paperwork that came with the PC back in 1999, it says something to the effect that the operating system should not be re-installed, as problems may be experienced. Oh dear, maybe I should have read this first.

Can anyone suggest why the machine is having this issue, which I can only assume must be based on the motherboard, and why it worked OK before reformatting, using the same physical hard drive.

If I need to flash the bios, how do I do this given that I can't boot and get access to the web?

Are there any bios settings that should be altered?

Any advice gratefully received.

 

Wow, I can't imagine any reputable company recommending the operating system not be reinstalled pfft...

Anyway, I would change the file format to the recommended FAT32

 

Yes, I agree. I mean, it must be the company who constructed the PC that created this rule, as the manufacturers of the motherboard would surely make it compatible with as many other pieces of hardware as they could.

In the event that the constructors did do something to stop a different hard drive from being used (why this should be escapes me) then presumably they must have written this into the bios? I tried reverting to bios defaults, but still the same.

Anyway, I'll try what you said and see what happens. Would it matter if I do this on the other PC and then place the fully reformatted to FAT32 disk back into the troubled machine?

Incidentally, I went to the QDI website, but it all appears to be in Chinese (I think). Not sure how I'd go on if I had to identify the correct bios from that! The site does sport an 'English' button, but when I tried it, everything appeared the same. Still, the board can't be all that bad, as it's lasted nearly ten years.