I formatted my sons computer as it was crashing all the time and had lots of crap he didn,t use but when i reinstalled windows i could not get the pc to boot up

it started up and allowed me to install windows then at the end of installation it restarted but didn,t :D

it finds the hard drive then as soon as it finds the floppy it says

non system disc please remove disc and press any key!

it has no discs in either the floppy or the cd rom even changing the hard drive with a spare has the same result

i have done this many times before no problem :(

put windows 2000 on instead.

Have you checked the BIOS is set to boot from the HDD....

havent changed the bios as i said i have done the same before without a problem

i think 2000 may be on the cards but his computer is old it may be time for a rebuild

it was working before i started :D

Did you format the drive? If so did you use the /s switch?

hit it with a big stick

no i didnt use the /s switch why?

big stick on its way :D

I think the /s switch sets up the system files and does something to say that it can boot from that drive. I'm sure that there must be a way of doing this now which doesn't involve reformatting, fdisk perhaps?

this might be useful http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000229.htm

Was win98 the OS before you formatted the drive?

Try diconnecting the floppy and/or disabling it in the BIOS. It's slightly possible the floppy is f*cked

Also, depending on the BIOS/hdd you may have issues with where you're trying to boot or load. Is WIn98 the only partition on the disk? If not, is the 'bootable' (i.e. win98) within 2GB of the start of the disk?

Also, does the BIOS recognise the hdd properly?

Vindaloo.

thanks its sorted now i thought the floppy was feked too but it was either the format missed something or the windows install missed something and couldnt restart

formatted again reinstalled its fine now:(

Glad that you got it sorted. Welcome to the elite band of win98 users :)

elite more like stoopid :D