Same problem, but I will try to clarify the steps I have already taken to fix it this time before you decide whether to answer. (Thanks to TheChas, though…your answer was the only one that included something I hadn’t already thought of.)
Customer sent a PC back on warranty and here is the problem: Installed a new motherboard and encountered boot difficulties. (Unit booted OK before it was sent to customer the first time.) Boots to Safe Mode OK, but normal boot hangs after splash screen(black screen with blinking cursor). Normal boot was partially successful ONCE, but hung when installing new motherboard devices. Found that Windows 98SE is somehow installed on a non-DOS partition.
1.Attempted to convert the partition to FAT32using Partition Magic, to no avail.
2.Scanned for viruses twice, no viruses found. 3.Manually set drive parameters in BIOS.
4.Attempted to SYS the drive from a boot floppy, but cannot do it on a non-DOS partition because there is no drive letter assigned.
5.Tried reloading OS, but cannot do it on a non-DOS partition (which begs the question as to how it is even installed in the first place)
6.Copied drive contents to another machine, reformatted the drive with a new FAT32 partition and copied the contents back over. Same malfunction persisted, and when I ran FDISK, the partition had been changed back to non-DOS again.
There are no add-in components currently installed. Only motherboard, RAM and hard drive, all of which have tested OK using more than one third party diagnostics tool. The idea is to resolve this problem without having to reinstall all of the applications.
