I can't access my A:/ drive?

[mylife]

I'm trying to create a boot disk so i can format my hard drive then install win2k.

When I go to My computer and click on the a: drive my comp freezes up.

any idea what's up?

 

[kronk]

Hmm, I know this sounds dumb, but is there a disk in the drive? PC's will lock up if there is not and it is trying to access. Try that.

 

[mylife]

Hmm, I know this sounds dumb, but is there a disk in the drive? PC's will lock up if there is not and it is trying to access. Try that.

nope, not that. my comp. is really messed up and the hard drive will be going out sooner or later. it's under warranty i just haven't ordered the new one yet. in the meantime i was gonna see if i could fomat the c: drive and upgrade to win2k to see how it runs. i need the a: drive to make the boot disk though and the computer just freezes up everytime i try to run it.

it's almost as if the computer is not recognizing an a: drive being present.

 

[XBiker]

Floppy drives die often, as to the cables that connect them.

It could even be the controller on the mainboard.

 

[Dr.M]

Check all the connections.

The Win2k CD is bootable anyway, make sure the CMOS will boot off the CDROM and voila.

 

[mylife]

Check all the connections.

The Win2k CD is bootable anyway, make sure the CMOS will boot off the CDROM and voila.

I try to boot of the Win2k cd and before it can start up a blue screen comes up that says something about either having a virus or my hard drive is too messed up to go on. it says to check for viruses and run scan disk. i did both of those but they froze up half way through.


the only reason i want to upgrade is because i want to download music making programs. the ones i want say they work on 95/98 or win2k or xp, none of them say ME.

do you think they'd still work?

 

[Night Fly]

I just had the same problem about a month ago. Result...my A drive was dead. Actually...both my CD rom drive AND my A drive went out. You are probably due to have it replaced.

 

[Dr.M]

Diskette drive should run you $12.99 and up, depending on quality etc.

If your booting off the CDROM isn't working for very long, its damn likely the boot disks wont work either, since you need to stream a few hundred megs off that CD which get cached to your drive. If you can get into WINDOWS, copy the i386 folder to your HDD, SHUT DOWN TO DOS MODE (or use F8 at bootup and select #6, DOS PROMPT), then:

CD i386 [ENTER] (this is if you put it in C:\i386
winnt /? (to see options, I believe winnt / is dont make boot disks)

If you want to just try to upgrade, from within WINDOWS use WINNT32, you can run it from Start > Run and browse for it.

 

[Canuck4]

If your booting off the CDROM isn't working for very long, its damn likely the boot disks wont work either, since you need to stream a few hundred megs off that CD which get cached to your drive. If you can get into WINDOWS, copy the i386 folder to your HDD, SHUT DOWN TO DOS MODE (or use F8 at bootup and select #6, DOS PROMPT), then:

CD i386 [ENTER] (this is if you put it in C:\i386
winnt /? (to see options, I believe winnt / is dont make boot disks)

If you want to just try to upgrade, from within WINDOWS use WINNT32, you can run it from Start > Run and browse for it. [/B]

Yep, thats the easy way of doing it.
No need for boot disks etc.
Just run the setup from a folder on your C: drive.

 

[Dr.M]

Whoops, winnt /b , obviously a blank option would do no good

If you run WINNT32.exe it'll allow you to upgrade.