Booting up problems

[valter]

Hello there,

I have fixed my old computer. Now I'm trying to get my OS back on it, which is windows95. The problem is during the boot process, in the very beginning, right after memory check, I get after a few seconds the following message(s):

hard disk fail (80)
floppy disk fail (40)

I thought formatting my hdd would solve the problem but not even that I can do. I tried booting from floppy but it keeps giving me the same error (see above). Here's what I've tried:

-Check everything's placement.
-Use minimal configuration (hoping that it'd work)
-unplugged, replugged IDE & floppy cable.

Also, I thought that the hdd config might be the problem, but I could be wrong. I know the CHS, but not precomp or landzone. I have a ST3290A.
My BIOS is Award bios (stupid thing which doesn't allow me auto detect).

I hope anyone can help me :).

Many thanks in advance, I'd greatly appreciate help :).


Greets, Valter R. :)

[Antti2004]

Just making sure that you have gone through the correct procedure. :)
1) You assembled the system, connected HDD on it's own (master) and connected floppy in as it only can be connected.
2) You checked via BIOS that the BIOS recognizes them.
3) You checked that the RAMs are in their slots correctly.
4) When you connect the Power on the system coes through POST (Pover On Self Test) and if the BIOS already earlier recognoized the setup then that should happend now too, but with an error no 'boot disk'.
5) Turn off the computer insert the Boot floppy for the Windows 95 (well I do wonder why you trying to install such old OS???) and start the PC with the floppy.
6) You should have option for FDISK, if not allow the procedure to finnish and when on the A DOS promt type FDISK.
7) Clear all the old info (partition) from the old HDD and create new active DOS partition (FAT16).
8) On A DOS promt type format c:/s
9) Now just wait until format is done, well it takes quite a while. :)
10) Restart the computer with boot floppy for the windows 95.
Hope it works now, but if not then buy via computer nerds magazine WIndows 98SE with boot floppy and do the same procedure, but change the FAT to FAT32.

Hope this helped. :)