CDROM not working

[dulfagd]

I recently acquired an old PC. I saw the CDROM working before acquisition. When I received it, the PC had been 'cleared' by fomatting the hard drive. I have set the BIOS to boot from CDROM. When booting, amongst other messages, I get the following

Found CDROM : MATSHITA CR-585
.
.
.
Boot from ATAPI CD-ROM : Failure

The system then boots to the C: Drive which only contains command.com

As I have a legal copy of Windows98 and would like to install it, how can I get the system to recognise the CDROM? Where do I get the software and how do I set up autoexec.bat and config.sys or any other requirements?

[reddevilggg]

If you have no disk in your CD-ROM, how can it boot from it.

Try putting the disk (Win98) in the machine then boot it.

[Allan]

If you have no disk in your CD-ROM, how can it boot from it.

Try putting the disk (Win98) in the machine then boot it.

What makes you think there is no disc in the drive?

dulfagd - try a different bootable disc just to make sure the XP disc is okay.

[reddevilggg]

dulfagd - try a different bootable disc just to make sure the XP disc is okay.

What makes you think he's got a XP disk?

Anyway, he never stated in his previous post that he'd put the disk in, i mean 'I' know it's obvious.

Also, once when i was trying to install Win 98 on a machine a few years ago and i was having problems. Someone on this site told me to take out the disk and give it a quarter of a turn then try again, i thought this was rubbish, but tried it and it worked. Give it a go, you never know.

[Allan]

I meant Win 98 disc.

[reddevilggg]

I know, i was just being facetious. 

[dulfagd]

No prizes for facetious comments. Just for your information, the Windows98 disk boots OK in other machines. Please - no more put downs, only useful comments. I am seriously seeking help with this computer problem.

[BradDet]

Are you comfortable taking the machine apart and playing with the hardware?

First thing I might try is to switch the cables going from your hard disk and CD-ROM.

If each one has a sperate cable, then put the cable going form the hard disk to the CD Rom, and the cable going from the CD Rom to the hard disk.

Then go into your bios and have it re-detect the drives, and then reboot.

If both are on one cable, it's slightly more complicated.

You basically want to temporarily make your CD-ROM the 'primary IDE' master, and if possible the harddrive the  secondary IDE master with 2 cables.

If you only have 1 cable and 1 IDE slot, you may have to mess with jumpers and stuff, and if you not familar with this stuff, I would take it to your favorite 'computer friend' and ask them to do it for you.

If none of this works, I would try taking the CD-ROM from a known working machine and temporarily put it into your machine to boot from just to get past the install.

I have worked with CD-ROM's before where the 'Boot From CD-ROM' part is broken, but the rest of the CD-Rom seems to work just fine.

Hope this helps. Good Luck

[BC_Programmer]

Also, Is this a Windows 98 or Windows 98 SE disc? The "First Edition"(RTM) discs were not bootable. (At least, none that I've seen have been)

[dulfagd]

Thanks for the real help. The system is now up and running.