Boot failure

[Dave Lyle]

Win95 on an old 486dx-100 clone.

I really went and did it now. While Win95 was booting, I hit the F4
key. Got the message "Booting to previous operating system" (or
similar). Problem is, AFAIK, there is no previous OS on the disk.
Win95 just hung.

Ctrl-alt-del, reset, or power off/on just yielded the same hung system.

The system displays all the bios stuff, but where it would normally say
"Starting Windows 95...", it doesn't. Nothing.

I set up the disk to run as slave in another machine and took a look
around. Autoexec.bat looks fine. Config.sys is 0 bytes. To the best of
my knowledge, msdos.sys looks OK.

I restored user.dat and system.dat with user.da0 and system.da0, but
that didn't help. I also tried restoring those files with back ups I
created months ago. No go.

What exactly happens when Win95 boots? I edited config.sys with a bogus
files, hoping to see an error reported at boot, but nothing. Same with
autoexec.bat, - so it isn't getting to either of these files. What does
Win95 run first? where do I look?

Dave

[ockerom]

"Dave Lyle" <da...@execpc.com> wrote in message
news:3B7F3C...@execpc.com...

> Win95 on an old 486dx-100 clone.
>
> I really went and did it now. While Win95 was booting, I hit the F4
> key. Got the message "Booting to previous operating system" (or
> similar). Problem is, AFAIK, there is no previous OS on the disk.
> Win95 just hung.

It's actually a bug in the system...

Do you have a Win 95 boot disk? If so boot with it and then type "SYS C:"

This should restore the missing system files and boot back up.

> I restored user.dat and system.dat with user.da0 and system.da0, but
> that didn't help. I also tried restoring those files with back ups I
> created months ago. No go.

I hope you backed up the original files before you replaced them??? If so,
restore them back before SYSing the drive as mentioned above.

>
> What exactly happens when Win95 boots? I edited config.sys with a bogus
> files, hoping to see an error reported at boot, but nothing. Same with
> autoexec.bat, - so it isn't getting to either of these files. What does
> Win95 run first? where do I look?

If I recall correctly, it loads IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS and then boots up the
Command processor, executes the config.sys, autoexec.bat and proceeds to
load up windows. Take a look at bootlog.txt for a list of how the system
boots up and what files it loads...

PaT.
Bust a "move_" and then give me a line.

[Gary]

Boot from a Win 95 Startup Disk that matches you version and at the A:>
sys c:
Win 95 used to have 4 files, two for a Win 95 boot (leaving a msdos.dos
file and one other with the same extension, it has been too long to
remember) and two for an old DOS boot but starting with Win 95b going to
old DOS without applying a fix kept the Windows boot files from coming
back. That could be your problem. You can also disable F4, F5, F6 and F8
with a line in msdos.sys, bootkeys=0, to prevent accidently pressing one
of those. bootmulti=0 should be in there to keep Win 95 from thinking it
is a multiboot system also.

--
Gary White
Lansing, Michigan, USA

mailto:garywh...@att.net
ICQ# 575452

[Henri Leboeuf]

Make sure that your file is correct.

Contents of the Windows Msdos.sys File
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q118/5/79.asp
--

Henri Leboeuf
Web page: http://www.generation.net/~hleboeuf/index.htm

"Dave Lyle" <da...@execpc.com> wrote in message
news:3B7F3C...@execpc.com...

[Dave Lyle]

On Sun, 19 Aug 2001 05:57:32 GMT, ockerom wrote...

>
>"Dave Lyle" <da...@execpc.com> wrote in message
>news:3B7F3C...@execpc.com...
>> Win95 on an old 486dx-100 clone.
>>
>> I really went and did it now. While Win95 was booting, I hit the F4
>> key. Got the message "Booting to previous operating system" (or
>> similar). Problem is, AFAIK, there is no previous OS on the disk.
>> Win95 just hung.
>
>It's actually a bug in the system...
>
>Do you have a Win 95 boot disk? If so boot with it and then type "SYS C:"

<sheepish grin> No, I don't have a boot disk. I do have access to a Win95
machine at work that I can make one on. I'll give this a try.

>> I restored user.dat and system.dat with user.da0 and system.da0, but
>> that didn't help. I also tried restoring those files with back ups I
>> created months ago. No go.
>
>I hope you backed up the original files before you replaced them??? If so,
>restore them back before SYSing the drive as mentioned above.

Yes., I did.

>> What exactly happens when Win95 boots? I edited config.sys with a bogus
>> files, hoping to see an error reported at boot, but nothing. Same with
>> autoexec.bat, - so it isn't getting to either of these files. What does
>> Win95 run first? where do I look?
>
>If I recall correctly, it loads IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS and then boots up the
>Command processor, executes the config.sys, autoexec.bat and proceeds to
>load up windows. Take a look at bootlog.txt for a list of how the system
>boots up and what files it loads...

Thanks.

Dave