NO ROM BASIC SYSTEM HALTED!!!
Roger Jensen
I was booting my 386/40Mhz pc which at the end of the post reverted to that
large basic font and posted the above message. For starters, I replaced the
backup battery to no avail. Then I tried a new controller (SCSI) from my 486...
no go.
Swapped memory...no go
took out all other cards except disk controller...no go
ok,ok,...Then I got serious and upgraded my 486 to 586/90 thinking to trash
the 386...
Installed the 486 cpu, re-installed all cards, only to see the SAME ERROR!!!
swapped the power supply, cabling, EVERYTHING EXCEPT THE DAMN CHASSIS!!!
Can someone give me some insight as to the error of my ways? Please,please...
have mercy on me.
--
O \ O / _ O __| \ / |__ O _ \O/
/|\ | /\ __\O \O | O/ O/__ /\ |
/ \ / \ | \ /) | ( \ /O\ / ) | (\ / | / \
rog...@apex.com (days) rog...@earth.pylon.com (eves) John 14:6
Ken Edwards
|> This is my tale of woe. Follow closely....
|>
|> I was booting my 386/40Mhz pc which at the end of the post reverted to that
|> large basic font and posted the above message. For starters, I replaced the
|> backup battery to no avail. Then I tried a new controller (SCSI) from my 486...
|> no go.
|> Swapped memory...no go
|> took out all other cards except disk controller...no go
|> ok,ok,...Then I got serious and upgraded my 486 to 586/90 thinking to trash
|> the 386...
|>
|> Installed the 486 cpu, re-installed all cards, only to see the SAME ERROR!!!
|>
|> swapped the power supply, cabling, EVERYTHING EXCEPT THE DAMN CHASSIS!!!
|>
|> Can someone give me some insight as to the error of my ways? Please,please...
|>
|> have mercy on me.
Did you change out the disk drive ??
--
======================================================================
Ken M. Edwards, PE Bell Northern Research, Research Triangle Park, NC
(919) 991-4769 email: cnc...@bnr.ca Ham: N4ZBB Packet: n4...@n1gmv.nc
DX PacketCluster (tm) Node : W4DW
All opinions are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of
my employer or co-workers, family, friends, congress, or president.
Steve Wilson
>> NO ROM BASIC, SYSTEM HALTED>
>
>
>Did you change out the disk drive ??
>
I've seen this happen when the hard drive has no operating system installed.
Got any DOS disks handy?
Phil Knaack
rog...@apex.com (Roger Jensen) writes:
>This is my tale of woe. Follow closely....
[ stuff deleted about NO ROM BASIC ]
This error is generally displayed when there is no MBR (Master Boot
Record) on the hard disk..
Cheers,
Phil
--
Phil Knaack fl...@iastate.edu
Database Programmer, NCREMP Student Development Group fl...@cs.iastate.edu
Regional Extension Office Project Vincent, ISU fl...@vorpal.com
Srinivas Krishnamurthy
This error comes when the HD primary partition is not active.
Use FDISK and set the partition active.
It is a one minute job.
- Cheenu.
R. Paul
Hi
I think you will find the problem is that your main drive C: no longer
has a active first partition use a system disk in drive a: and put Fdisk.com
to boot up and reset you partition to active. Good luck.
cen...@ibm.net
>This is my tale of woe. Follow closely....
>
Use FDISK and check and see if the partition is set active. This message is displayed
when there is no active partition. Good luck....
Cathy Engel
va...@well.com
armPIT
: This is my tale of woe. Follow closely....
: I was booting my 386/40Mhz pc which at the end of the post reverted to that
: large basic font and posted the above message. For starters, I replaced the
: backup battery to no avail. Then I tried a new controller (SCSI) from my 486...
: no go.
: Swapped memory...no go
: took out all other cards except disk controller...no go
: ok,ok,...Then I got serious and upgraded my 486 to 586/90 thinking to trash
: the 386...
: Installed the 486 cpu, re-installed all cards, only to see the SAME ERROR!!!
: swapped the power supply, cabling, EVERYTHING EXCEPT THE DAMN CHASSIS!!!
: Can someone give me some insight as to the error of my ways? Please,please...
: have mercy on me.
it can't find a boot device. if your bios settings have the A: boot
disabled, then re enable it. boot from a floppy, then make sure that your
hardisk is partitioed correctly, and that it is bootable.
--
Dave Reader ---------------------------------------- D.A.R...@bradford.ac.uk
1st Yr ug Electrical & Electronic Engineering at the University of Bradford UK
+-+-+-+ I know, you know; What is the truth, who knows? <clawfinger> +-+-+-+
*-._.-'~ Find me at jumper.mcc.ac.uk, helping on Mars on port 3214 !! _.-'~`-*
PGUTT
i had same message once on my compudyne 486sx @ 25m
my cd drive also stopped accessing disks.
well, i had the on site service and after about an hour of hard disk work
the tech said the boot sectors was so badly damaged by a virus that we
would
have to blow the whole disk away... format would not work... he had to use
DiskPro ultils 3 times before he could even see a correct partition on the
disk.
Monkey-2 virus loaded into memory each time i booted up or did dir...
it ate away more of my boot sectorsand MORE.
20% of my good floopies and minis were conrupt too.
happy anti-virusing... maybe!
Anthony Naggs
>In <3k1lbv...@aphid.apex.com>
> rog...@apex.com (Roger Jensen) writes:
>>This is my tale of woe. Follow closely....
> [ stuff deleted about NO ROM BASIC ]
>This error is generally displayed when there is no MBR (Master Boot
>Record) on the hard disk..
Did this happen on March 6th by any chance? "Michelangelo virus day"?
When an infected system trashes around 9Mb of the hard drive, including
the now famous MBR?
Here in sunny South Africa we've seen a lot of PCs with similar symptoms
in the last week and a half. Data is often recoverable, it takes time &
effort but it is rarely complete.
Regards,
Anthony Naggs
/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\/-\
\ CSIR Computer Virus Research Lab. Tel: +27 12 841 2106 /
| PO Box 395, Pretoria 0001 South Africa Fax: +27 12 841 3037 |
/ Email: na...@nuustak.csir.co.za \
\-/\-/\-/\-/\-/\-/\-/\-/\-/\-/\-/\-/\-/\-/\-/\-/\-/\-/\-/\-/\-/\-/
Douglas H. Quebbeman
: I was booting my 386/40Mhz pc which at the end of the post reverted to that
: large basic font and posted the above message. For starters, I replaced the
: backup battery to no avail. Then I tried a new controller (SCSI) from my 486
: ... no go. Swapped memory...no go took out all other cards except disk
: controller...no go ok,ok,...Then I got serious and upgraded my 486 to
: 586/90 thinking to trash the 386...
A customer of mine called me, saying that the previous Friday, March 3,
the machine in question was fine. On Monday, March 6, they turned it on,
and it displayed a similar message. The hard drive checked out OK, and
then it hit me: March 6 is the day the STONE/MARCH 6TH virus activates
and WIPES OUT THE HARD DRIVE! If your problem happened to you on March 6,
then you got bit by a virus.
After reformatting the customer's machine, reinstalling DOS and Windows,
I also set up VSAFE to run in the AUTOEXEC.BAt every time the machine
boots.
Of course, the virus wipes itself off the hard drive, so you can't be
certain, but if I were you, I'd run a virus checking program against
EVERY SINGLE FLOPPY DISK YOU OWN OR HAVE IN YOUR POSSESION (sorry for
shouting).
Good luck!
--
--
-Douglas H. Quebbeman (do...@iglou.com)
"The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away." -Tom Waits
Vaamonde Oubi~na, Jose Manuel
Use Fdisk to create a partition and set it to ACTIVE.Then, format
the hard disk and install the operative system.
Sam Goldwasser
> In article <1995Mar23.161651.2651@opalo>, oub...@opalo.etsiig.uniovi.es (Vaamonde Oubi~na, Jose Manuel) writes:
> > In article <flipk.7...@soclab.soc.iastate.edu>, fl...@iastate.edu (Phil Knaack) writes:
> >> In <3k1lbv...@aphid.apex.com>
> >> rog...@apex.com (Roger Jensen) writes:
> >>
> >>>This is my tale of woe. Follow closely....
> >>
> >> [ stuff deleted about NO ROM BASIC ]
> >>
> >> This error is generally displayed when there is no MBR (Master Boot
> >> Record) on the hard disk..
<snip>
> > Use Fdisk to create a partition and set it to ACTIVE.Then, format
> > the hard disk and install the operative system.
> >
> I'm sorry, but I didn't read the original post. That works
> with IDE disks,I'm not sure about SCSI's.
Same applies if SCSI is boot device.
--- sam
Robert J. Cardinali
BBBZZZZTTT -
First try --> fdisk /mbr
It'll re-install the master boot record, and with any luck, your hard
drive will still have all of it's filesystem with all files intact.
--
| rcar...@erc.cat.syr.edu | Disclaimer Services Provided By |
| ck...@cleveland.freenet.edu | The Law Firm Of |
| ah...@yfn.ysu.edu | Dewey Cheetham And Howe P.C. |
Vaamonde Oubi~na, Jose Manuel
Dave Gold
believe) from a 286 system.
1)The new quantum 540 mb hard drive does not work with older seagate 40mb
hard drives (ask quantum about it...)
2)I called quantum who told me that the drive should work assuming that
the cmos is set properly. he gave me instructions on debugging the drive
that may or may not have been the problem.
3)Prior to that, I could not get the system to boot even off the floppy
drive if the quantum was hooked up.
4)I had a new DTC controller hooked up (IDE--not EIDE) and everything
they said told me that the problem was either an older bios (DTC sells a
$25 bios upgrade board--may solve this problem) or a bad quantum drive.
Basically, I think that the Bad ROM Bios point to a boot problem that
the computer cant deal with and thus tries to revert to the automatically
going into basic as the original pc did if there was no boot disk. The
problem is that there is no longer any Basic in the boot rom.
-dg
ed_...@smtp.svl.trw.com
dave...@cambridge.village.com (Dave Gold) wrote:
Wrong emphasis on the error message you got. It should read "No ROM.
Basic System Halted", not
"No ROM Basic. System Halted". The message usually indicates that you
don't have a master boot record on your HD. It doesn't have anything to
do with the Basic in the original PCs.
Wai Shiu
.It works fine. Well, I am not so sure. you may check you controller card
alex
Rob Hafley
ed_...@smtp.svl.trw.com writes:
> > Basically, I think that the Bad ROM Bios point to a boot problem that
> > the computer cant deal with and thus tries to revert to the automatically
> > going into basic as the original pc did if there was no boot disk. The
> > problem is that there is no longer any Basic in the boot rom.
> >
> > -dg
> Wrong emphasis on the error message you got. It should read "No ROM.
> Basic System Halted", not
> "No ROM Basic. System Halted". The message usually indicates that you
> don't have a master boot record on your HD. It doesn't have anything to
> do with the Basic in the original PCs.
Hate to disagree, but it DOES have everything to do with no ROM Basic
in the system. If there is no bootable disk present, MOST PC bios will
revert to trying to load Basic from ROM, although AFAIK only IBM PCs
had this feature. To check this out, try running BASICA from an early
PC-DOS system on a non-IBM system.
rob
Robert A. Hafley R.A.H...@LaRC.NASA.GOV
Mail Stop 188A AS&M, INC.
2 West Reid Street Assigned to Materials Division
NASA Langley Research Center Building 1205, Room 229F
Hampton, VA 23681-0001 Phone +1 804 864-8078
John Lundgren
Robert J. Cardinali (ck...@cleveland.Freenet.Edu) wrote:
: In a previous article, oub...@opalo.etsiig.uniovi.es (Vaamonde Oubi~na, Jose Manuel) says:
: >In article <flipk.7...@soclab.soc.iastate.edu>, fl...@iastate.edu (Phil Knaack) writes:
: >> In <3k1lbv...@aphid.apex.com>
: >> rog...@apex.com (Roger Jensen) writes:
: >>
: >>>This is my tale of woe. Follow closely....
: >>
: >> [ stuff deleted about NO ROM BASIC ]
: >>
: >> This error is generally displayed when there is no MBR (Master Boot
: >> Record) on the hard disk..
: >> Cheers,
: >> Phil
: >Use Fdisk to create a partition and set it to ACTIVE.Then, format
: >the hard disk and install the operative system.
: BBBZZZZTTT -
: First try --> fdisk /mbr
: It'll re-install the master boot record, and with any luck, your hard
: drive will still have all of it's filesystem with all files intact.
: --
: | rcar...@erc.cat.syr.edu | Disclaimer Services Provided By |
: | ck...@cleveland.freenet.edu | The Law Firm Of |
: | ah...@yfn.ysu.edu | Dewey Cheetham And Howe P.C. |
I wish it was that easy after the Michelangelo attack on Mar 6. It got a
half dozen of our secretaries. And as usual, none had backups of
everything.
--
=====================================================================
| John Lundgren - Elec Tech - Info Tech Svcs | Standard |
| Rancho Santiago Community College District | disclaim- |
| 17th St. at Bristol \ Santa Ana, CA 92706 | ers apply.|
| jlun...@pop.rancho.cc.ca.us\jlun...@kn.pacbell.com | |
| "He who toys with the most dies, wins."- Dr Kevorkian?| |
=====================================================================
Cameron Spitzer
<ed_...@smtp.svl.trw.com> wrote:
>In article <3ln4km$k...@cambridge.village.com>,
>dave...@cambridge.village.com (Dave Gold) wrote:
>Wrong emphasis on the error message you got. It should read "No ROM.
>Basic System Halted", not
>"No ROM Basic. System Halted". The message usually indicates that you
>don't have a master boot record on your HD. It doesn't have anything to
>do with the Basic in the original PCs.
The original PC was available without any disk drive. In that
configuration, the operating system was an optional BASIC in ROM. The
error message NO ROM BASIC, SYSTEM HALTED indicated that neither the
optional bootable disk nor the optional ROM BASIC was found.
You needed one or the other to run the machine.
Ed is almost correct; it's got nothing to do with the *disk-based* BASIC.
Acronyms: Read-Only Memory, Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code.
--
Cameron Spitzer, San Jos\'e California, c...@truffula.sj.ca.us
Michael Browner
|> Hmmmm.I got this message before, when I change a new HD controller card
|> .It works fine. Well, I am not so sure. you may check you controller card
|> alex
|>
|>
|> > In article <3ln4km$k...@cambridge.village.com>,
|> > dave...@cambridge.village.com (Dave Gold) wrote:
|> >
|> > > believe) from a 286 system.
|> > >
|> > > 1)The new quantum 540 mb hard drive does not work with older seagate 40mb
|> > > hard drives (ask quantum about it...)
|> > > 2)I called quantum who told me that the drive should work assuming that
|> > > the cmos is set properly. he gave me instructions on debugging the drive
|> > > that may or may not have been the problem.
|> > > 3)Prior to that, I could not get the system to boot even off the floppy
|> > > drive if the quantum was hooked up.
|> > > 4)I had a new DTC controller hooked up (IDE--not EIDE) and everything
|> > > they said told me that the problem was either an older bios (DTC sells a
|> > > $25 bios upgrade board--may solve this problem) or a bad quantum drive.
|> > >
|> > > the computer cant deal with and thus tries to revert to the automatically
|> > > going into basic as the original pc did if there was no boot disk. The
|> > > problem is that there is no longer any Basic in the boot rom.
|> > >
|> > > -dg
|> > Basic System Halted", not
|> > "No ROM Basic. System Halted". The message usually indicates that you
|> > don't have a master boot record on your HD. It doesn't have anything to
|> > do with the Basic in the original PCs.
|> >
The above statement is correct. The system cannot find the master boot
record. Either it is not there or you did not set it active.
To the original poseter, did you use fdisk and did you make the first drive
active.
Michael B.
--
Michael Browner bro...@sun1.racal.com or
(305) 846-6848 bro...@rd1.racal.com
Racal-Datacom, MS E-112,
P.O.Box 407044, Ft Lauderdale, FL 33340
Clifton Koch
Not quite. The original PCs had Basic installed in ROM, and hard/floppy
drives were optional. Basic has since been yanked from the systems, so if
a bootable hard drive or no floppy drive can be found, then the system will
error out in this way. If a floppy drive can be found, but there is no
bootable disk in it, then the system will prompt for one.
The above error message indicates that neither a bootable hard drive or
*any* floppy drive could be found in the system.
Cliff
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cliff Koch
Motorola Cellular Infrastructure Division
ko...@cig.mot.com
Steve Day
: In article <Pine.A32.3.91c.95040...@mead1.u.washington.edu>, Wai Shiu <al...@u.washington.edu> writes:
: |> > Wrong emphasis on the error message you got. It should read "No ROM.
: |> > "No ROM Basic. System Halted". The message usually indicates that you
: |> > don't have a master boot record on your HD. It doesn't have anything to
: |> > do with the Basic in the original PCs.
: The above statement is correct. The system cannot find the master boot
: record. Either it is not there or you did not set it active.
The above statement is NOT correct. The early IBM machines had ROM BASIC
as an option. I never saw an early pc that didn't have the roms in place.
If the system could not boot, either from the hard disk or a floppy, it
dropped into rom basic. The clones that came copied the original bios
and, since they didn't have any rom basic, they issued this message.
Later versions of the bios started saying "please insert a bootable disk"
or some such message. A lot of the early clones came with the rom sockets
on them so you could put the basic roms in the machine. Since a hard disk
is not ROM and a floppy is not ROM, No ROM, Basic System Halted makes no
sense. The only way it would make sense is if you removed the ROM bios
from the machine but, if you did, you wouldn't get anything at all.The
reason for the message has always remained the same. The system can't
boot from either a floppy or a hard disk.
Steve Day
Sam Goldwasser
RE: NO ROM BASIC SYSTEM HALTED.
> Wrong emphasis on the error message you got. It should read "No ROM.
> Basic System Halted", not
> "No ROM Basic. System Halted". The message usually indicates that you
> don't have a master boot record on your HD. It doesn't have anything to
> do with the Basic in the original PCs.
As noted, the BASIC programming language interpreter was in ROM in early
IBM PCs. BASIC and BASICA were entry points to this code. Thus the first
interpretation would be appropriate and is not incorrect.
For newer systems, it is best to think in terms of the second intepretation.
--- sam
Microserv, Inc.
> Can someone give me some insight as to the error of my ways? Please,please...
> have mercy on me.
Last time I saw that error it was caused by not makin ANY partition active
after FDISK. I had the same symptom, but didn't have to go farther than
going into FDISK and selecting "make partition active". Hope this is your
problem. Been awhile, so not exactly sure of my ERROR syntax.
Thanks,
-----------------------------------------------------------
Dan Ulrich
Internet: danu...@cyberspace.com
-----------------------------------------------------------
Lin Shawn R
BIOS. It had me confused! I think it was caused by a stupid Stereo
FX/CD sound card. I just wanted to hook up a cheap Mitsumi CD-ROM, but
that stupid sound card not only conflicted with my ProAudio Spectrum but
it also didn't like my SCSI HD controller and my HD wouldn't boot, or
would freeze up in various stages of booting. Changing IRQs, DMAs, etc.
didn't do any good. Had to get one of those tiny universal single-chip
CD-ROM controllers to fix the problem.
--
Shawn Lin "Knock softly, but firmly. I like soft, firm knockers."
srl...@nic.smsu.edu 1-417-883-2169
sli...@ozarks.sgcl.lib.mo.us Fido: 1:284/64
E. Snel
> Not quite. The original PCs had Basic installed in ROM, and hard/floppy
>drives were optional. Basic has since been yanked from the systems, so if
>a bootable hard drive or no floppy drive can be found, then the system will
>error out in this way. If a floppy drive can be found, but there is no
>bootable disk in it, then the system will prompt for one.
> The above error message indicates that neither a bootable hard drive or
>*any* floppy drive could be found in the system.
I get this error quite often, usually when I have been trying a CD-ROM that
won't work in my system. (Due to lack of RAM memory I think.) The only thing
I can do then is push the reset button. Then the system reboots normally. So
it DOES find my bootable harddisc and everything is OK. Why can't my system
find the drive before I press reset? Is my PC faulty or is this normal
behaviour?
BFN
Evert
Bryan Costin
couple times when configuring new systems or wiping an old one. This is
one of those head-pounding errors that is utterly non-intutive until
after you figure it out.
-Bryan
Roger Williams
Gentlemen,
This error will not occur on an XT because the ROM in an IBM
had basic in it. To maintain ROM compatability the scans of system have not
changed. If the system cannot find a boot device it will try to find another
ROM signature to start loading. The last ROM signature is the BASIC ROM.
If it cannot find that it reports the last known error.
Regards
Roger Williams
wi...@nbnet.nb.ca
506 849 8599
KO Wan Lung
I have also just encountered this problem. The case is that I bought
a new Hard disk 500M to replace an old one. But I want to copy the old data
to the new one. So I connect the new hard disk as slave at first. (remember
to change the jumper select). Then fdisk and format it.
At this stage, the new one is d:, after that I change it to c:, but
it can boot and show the NO ROM BASIC SYSTEM HALTED error. Then I use
floppy disk to boot the machine and then connect the new one as master (c:) and
old one as slave (d:) [remember to format a floppy system disc for a: first]
Then I do low-level format to the new hard disk in cmos utility and
format it again. The problem is solved...
Robin Ko.