Dell Laptop...Not booting up for DS use

[Danster]

Hey guys I need some help in getting my Laptop to boot up. It's an old Dell that I used for Direct Scan. It used to work before but did not use it for a few months (winter time). Tried using it a few weeks ago and it did not want to boot up. We had set where it would boot with DS at startup.

When I go to power up the laptop I get a "Primary Hard Disk Drive 0 not found". Do I have a hard drive problem? What can I do to fix this?

Dannyo

[2 QK 4 U]

Originally Posted by Danster

Hey guys I need some help in getting my Laptop to boot up. It's an old Dell that I used for Direct Scan. It used to work before but did not use it for a few months (winter time). Tried using it a few weeks ago and it did not want to boot up. We had set where it would boot with DS at startup.

When I go to power up the laptop I get a "Primary Hard Disk Drive 0 not found". Do I have a hard drive problem? What can I do to fix this?

Dannyo

Access your bios screen and make sure that Floppy Disk Drive boots first.
Then make sure you have the DS floppy disk installed durring power on.

[Danster]

It turned out to be the hard drive. I replaced with another one bought off of ebay. It was only a 6GB hard drvie, but not concern as I only use it for DS.

Now I'm waiting for someone to loan me their Windows 98 OS disk so I can reload it as the HD came with Windows 2000 password protected.

How easy is it to reload it with Windows 98 since I don't have the password for the current S/W?

Can anybody help?

Dannyo

[2 QK 4 U]

don't worry about what operating system it has.

Just use the Direct Scan Boot disk.

[Danster]

It works! Thanks a bunch for your help!



Dannyo

[SixOn66]

There is a way to reset the password with a boot CD.
Does it have a CD drive?
I might have some old 98SE disks around here.
The 2000 hard disk will be formatted NTFS and you will not be able to write your saved files to it. 98 has to have a FAT or FAT32 file system.

[Danster]

It does have a CD drive. I know some folks who have a 98 OS disk they said they could loan me. Just need to figure out how to reload it? Never done it before.


Dannyo

[SixOn66]

Enter the BIOS make sure the CD drive boots before the hard drive. Put the CD in and follow the prompts. I will ask you what drive you want to install it on. Then you will have to format it. and it will erase all information on the drive. Enter your license key and follow the prompts. Most drivers will have to be downloaded and installed.