This is just weird! Please help

Heres a strange problem Im hoping someone can help me out with. I have a P200 box I am trying to install WIndows 95 on. After fdisking and formatting, I boot off the floppy and start installing from CD. Once the install is finished and Windows has rebooted, I try to access my computer but the machine locks up. Reset the PC to try again, and it does the usual scandisk thing, but for some reason after checking drive C it checks drive D (Even though there is only one physical hard disk installed). Gets back into Windows, but the same problem occurs. If I go to a DOS prompt in Windows I can read C and E drives ok (E being the CD). If I try to access this D drive, the machine locks up again and I go through the entire process over. Heres the weird part, If I boot to a command prompt without loading Windows I can access the D drive ok, it looks as though it is an image of the entire C drive, same contents and free space etc. If I run fdisk from here, I am told I have two physical disks installed, both are identical. Furthermore, If I unplug the CDROM drive and boot the machine, everything works like a dream, I no longer have a D drive or an E drive, but My Computer doesnt lock up when I click on it and everything seems good. Plug in the CDROM again, and it falls over. I have tried three different CDROM drives now, all with the same result. I have tried installing Bus Master drivers for the IDE cntroller (Have gone through the whole slave/master, primary/secondary thing too), I even tried different video and sound cards. I thought maybe upgrading to Win98 would solve it, but that just made the machine slower, and it still locked up. Im running out of ideas, and really running out of patience, CDROM drives should just plug in and work shouldn't they? Please help if you have any ideas, big or small, cause I am all out, thanks.

Sounds like it could be a hardware failure on the motherboard or a bad hard drive. Some things I might try, different hard drive,checking hard drive with diagnostics from manufacturer,checking for virus,removing enum key from registry (to redetect hardware). Some chipsets require extra care such as some via chipsets which requires via 4 in 1 drivers to be loaded (on some boards this requires windows to be loaded with only the video card in then adding the 4 in 1 drivers and then the other adaptor cards).

I agree with Slipstream, Its sure souns like a hardware issue/conflict somewhere on the system.
I had a simialr fault a little while ago and it turned out to be the brand of video card I was using with the system board?????

I recommed checking the hard disk settings as well as even swapping disk. If that dont work, then try the system board.

Keep us informed if u fix it, Seems a weird problem to get to the bottom of

Cheers
Papa Smurf

Ok, I tried another hard disk this morning with similiar results. After installing WIndows the machine fell over during the detection of plug and play devices (After the first reboot) and continued to lock up at this point until I disconnected the CD drive. Course doing this meant Windows couldn't finish installing its files from CD so I had to skip the graphics card driver files. After rebooting again the machine wouldn't even boot, it would lock up on the splash screen (Even with the CDROM drive disconnected). This is the second machine I have tried building too as the first one I was trying to work on had exactly the same problem I have mentioned above. Plus, on top of all that, my bosses son recently tried installing a CDROM drive in a completely different P200 machine with similiar specs as the one I am working on, and it to fell over and wouldn't boot. So, where does this leave me, up that proverbial creek without a paddle Im guessing <IMG SRC="smilies/frown.gif" border="0">

That seems very strange. Are all the cd roms the same model? (Faulty or incompatible batch?) Also have you tried loading windows from the hard drive? Just sys hard drive,copy the win95 directory to the hard drive (xcopy /s if you want the subdirectories but you don't need them), unplug cd and run setup from the hard drive and try to add cd after windows is loaded.

I have tried an 8x mitsumi drive, an 8x Creative drive and a 24x Panasonic drive all with the same problem. I have found the only way to install Windows now is from the Hard disk (The last 6 re-installs have been done from the hard disk). If I install from the CDROM drive I find the drivers are loaded for it, and when the machine reboots without the boot disk I have no CD support to finish the install of Windows (That is, providing the machine doesnt lock up before hand). I have also tried replacing the RAM in the machine too this afternoon, but that had the same problem. i think I'll try a completely different P200 machine tomorrow, but if you have anything else worth trying in the mean time, Im all ears hey.

You've probably already tried, but have you used different windows media? I had a similiar problem and it turned out the cd was scratched and the install would complete but was corrupted. Also had something similiar with a 233 pentium in a tower when I just hung the fan on the processor and didn't latch it. Have seen a similiar problem on another occasion when some one gave me a chip that had been incorrectly installed (hard to do but it can be done) in the socket....windows would load perfectly....but the second you tried to run an application the machine locked up. Just food for thought.

P.S. when you ran Fdisk...did the HDD only have one partition?

What are the chances that you have a virus? What about flashing the BIOS - is their a newer one available?

sounds like you have a compressed drive or a drive overlay installed. FDISK and remove all pertitions, the run FDISK /MBR a dozen times or so. Then run FDISK again and set up one prinmary DOS partition and format. Then install again.

I presume you have tried a controler card and disabling the onboard ide channels (1 or both) in case they are defective. Likewise an old cd soundcard combo with ide or other connection if you have any lying around.

Uhm, silly question but have you tried new ram? If the drive D: is created during the bootup procedure with bootdisk it is a ramdrive, ...

Maybe able to dissable cache in cmos settings. System will take a major performance hit. But if this works have a bad processor.


make a clean boot disk and then write protect it.
remove everything except video, processor, and ram
fdisk the hard drive removing the old partition. Do a HARD reset. (power off not just ctrl+alt+del) Install a new partition. Once rebooted and formatted copy all file from cd to hard drive. remove cdrom. Now install windows.

If it now messes up try new memory, and check memory settings in cmos.
Still messes up change processor then video then motherboard.

good luck

Regarding removing the Drive Overlay Partition (Disk Manager, EZ-Drive, On-Track, etc.)

This is a link to a Shareware Utility called "AEFdisk".

<a href="http://www.aefdisk.com/" target="_blank">http://www.aefdisk.com/</a>

It is a third party replacement for fdisk. Put it on a boot floppy & run "aefdisk /delall". This will delete ALL partitions! no warnings, no "are you sure?", No kidding! This will kill NTFS, Drive Overlay, Compaq F10 & any combination of FAT partitions on your drive. You can then use regular fdisk to create a system partition, then "format /s" as you would normally.

Lucrecious has a good point, try installing a drive controller card & disabling the integrated drive controller in the BIOS to see if this fixes the problem.

Good luck!

Keep us informed.

boot to dos, edit ur autoexec.bat and check to see wot cd rom drives are being requested, it may be setup to install the drivers twice (would lead to this problem as ive had it before) rem the cd-rom lines out, reboot and see wot windows does :) :D

It seems to me that by removing the CDROM your HD behaves as normal would indicate the HD was OK. Are they on the same channel? are you running CS or slave, master? I had a similar problem with a P200 and it turned out that I made a mistake of having CD and HD on same channel both as Master. :o Just a thought.