Unable to boot Win95

I have had this afew times myself, and is normally due to loading some new software which adds/updates a file in the IOSubSys directory (this is a very important directory, worth backing it up).
Did you load / unload some software before the problem??
Yes a format and rebuild will remove the Windows boot problem, however I would be more worried about why the CDRom is not detected in BIOS? I would suggest checking all cables, trying the cdrom on a different IDE channel (if you only have 2 idechannels then but the cdrom on the second channel as this will also improve performance (provided there is not an other device on this channel)). Also what driver are you using on the boot disk? and are the config.sys and autoexec.bat lines correct?

Hope this points you in the right direction.

BTW format is the last option

I did find an article in technet pertaining to this error message. Seems i need to change an entry in the System.ini file to change the maximum cache size. With the system not booting how do i do that?? Im not real proficient with DOS. thanks

I think modifying the system.ini is going to be the easy part: make sure that you boot into dos from a boot floppy. at the C: prompt type cd\windows and press enter. next type edit system.ini and enter again. if the edit command doesnt work like this you might want to type c:\windows\command\edit system.ini. make the changes to the settings and then press Alt-F to active the file menu and select exit. make sure you select yes to save the changes and VOILA you're done with this part.
i remember that the file rmm.pdr can also cause these errors so you might want to look for this file in the windows\system folder and rename it. Also corrupted files in the windows\system\vmm folder can be theproblem so you might wnat to extract new copies ofthese files from the cd.

Do you have an dos install disk? Insert the first disk, and power the system up (assuming you have your bios set to default to the floppy drive first). If you don't boot to floppy first, try holding down the F1 key while booting, this will often force you into bios where you can make the change to the boot sequence. Once booting to floppy, you should see messages pertaining to installing dos. Typically, you press F3 to exit the installation, but you'll still be in dos mode. At this point you should be able to type "edit c:\windows\system.ini" and load the system.ini into an editor. (I believe this will require dos 5 or later).

***If not "edit", you might find "edlin" which is more tedious, and I don't even recall the sytax. If it gets to this point, copy your system.ini to a floppy and edit it on another system.***

Once in the system.ini, you should see the value "maxcachesize" (or something very similar), under the [386enh] section. Modify the value to the size specified my theTechnet bulletin, save, remove the floppy, and reboot.

Good luck!

Hello

I can get into the sys.ini through DOS but the file is empty! i add the lines from the info i got at technet but still nothing. Do i need to rebuild sys.in or is a reinstall the way to go. Remember im still conserned about picking up the CDROM after a format.

thanks

This is a machine that im working on 4 someone and they cant remember what they did,their 1st computer given to the 2 weeks ago! on running a bootlog the system crashes when loading Bigmem.drv ,,im trying to find some info on it now,,any help is appreciated.