got boot disk after HD fail, still cant see CD Dri

[argh]

Hi

Well, my SCSI boot drive with the OS on it died (mechanical failure) so I need to reinstall XP to my other (IDE)hard disk. My BIOS is 1999, so without my OS I cant use my CD drive, nor do I have an A: prompt or command window of any kind. So I downloaded the Windows XP setup disk from Free PC Tech Support, which includes a generic CD Rom driver, ran the executable on my (XP) pc at work to create the boot disk, went home and put the floppy in the ailing machine. But I got an error report saying that no CD drive was found, therefore setup was aborted (and no command window, A prompt etc still). I'm pretty sure that the CD drive is  connected up ok, as it was connected to the IDE drive, which is still there, rather than the deceased SCSI drive.  I know the CD drive is mechanically ok. Its an LG electronics CED-8042B and runs from a standard ATAPI driver.
I'm at a loss at this point - any suggestions?

[ale52]

You should 2 IDE controllers on your motherboard (you don't give any info on your motherboard type).  I would connect the hdd to IDE 1 & the cdrom to IDE 2 & not master/slave them so they each have their own channel to work off of.

In you BIOS you may be able to set it to boot to the cdrom 1st, thus not needing a boot disk.  

BTW - any Windows 98 boot disk will load a bunch of generic cdrom drivers  

Did you remove the SCSI controller card?

Alan <><  

[Raptor]

The Windows XP boot diskettes do not load any drivers, they assume you know how to do that yourself. And you probably need a total of 6 diskettes.

Are you sure you can't boot from the CD? Perhaps you need a BIOS upgrade.

[patio]

Try a WinME boot disk from bootdisk.com...
Have you gone into the BIOS and disabled the SCSI interface ? ?

patio.   8-)

[argh]

have not disabled the scsi interface in the bios - not sure how to do this, but sounds a possibility worth a try, as the start up messages still make reference to the scsi  even though I have physically removed the scsi disk and all its connections (including the controller card).

changing the boot order doesnt work - the problem is its an old computer with no cd driver on the bios.  The boot disc that i have downloaded is not the set of 6 that people have referred to, its a single disk that includes a generic cd drive. As my cd drive runs off a standard atapi driver I would have expected that to work.

What I think MAY be relevant is that my remaining hard disk is NTFS, whereas the scsi disk was FAT32 - I have just come across references to what seems to be a catch 22 situation where the boot floppys are Win98 based, and (according to these references) win38  cant read NTFS. In which case, I wonder - is my remaining option (short of new computer) a new motherboard?

Thanks for the feedback so far, people

[panboy]

It True windows 98 Disks can not Read NTFS, but they can give it a good Old Fdisk, and Delete Everthing.

When you boot the Computer, and the post Is displayed on Screen, does it show that The CD-Rom was Detected?, i shoud say some thing like this.

Primary IDE Master : HDD
Primary IDE Slave   : CD-Rom
Secondary IDE Master : None
Sccondary IDE Slave : None

[argh]

thats a very last ditch option though - deleting all the data on the hard disk is a high price to pay if theres another way round. I'll check the output you've suggested in detail.

[Raptor]

Why not install Windows 98 first and then upgrade from Windows 98 to Windows XP?

[argh]

I dont have a windows 98 full install disk, just the boot (floppy) disk. But effectively what I understand the floppy should be doing is to install the essential windows 98 utilities which should allow me to see the CD drive and from that install XP off the cd rom.

I get as far as the "starting windows 98" message, but it then informs me no drives found. I'm begfinning to think there may be some connection missing from the CD drive (which originally used the generic windows ATAPI driver on the now dead scsi disk) as regardless of whether it can recognise NTFS, windows 98 should at least be able to recognise the CD drive - but it doesnt seem to see this at all. I have tried editing the config.sys on the floppy to point to each one of the four generic drivers, but eaCH ONE REPORTS SOME VARIANT OF THE "NO DRIVE FOUND" message. Is there any way (without a full windows install) I can test whether it is the CD drive itself or the CD driver that is the problem?

[Raptor]

The boot diskette loads essential drivers and tools such as the keyboard driver, IDE driver for CD-ROM support, scandisk, fdisk, etc.

I don't think you can just install Windows XP by booting off a Windows 98 boot diskette. Otherwise the Windows XP boot diskette collection wouldn't be comprised of 6 diskettes..

[argh]

ah, but you can....
see note 1 at the site below

http://freepctech.com/pc/002/files010.shtml