Stuck on my laptop, noes

CheapAlert

Where'd our tech forum go? anyways...

I recently attempted to install Windows 2000 Pro on my laptop (Compaq Presario 1277, K6 433, Win98SE). After setup finishes copying temporary setup files over, and restarts, I get a black screen on boot, nothing else. No input, nothing on screen, nothingly obliviously nothing.

I googled, and I only could find the suggestion "format your drives", which I won't, and can't do unfortunately (especially on a laptop where it's OS setup (just cabs) and Compaq support files are entirely loaded on the drive and not a cd or floppy). I still have Win98SE installed, and not upgraded. (I chose new clean Win2k install but that obviously didn't go too far)

Now, how do I get my laptop to boot back into Win98se without demolishing my hard drive contents please

sal_manilla

Cheapy, I got some good friends at this site....give Randy and his gang a try at http://www.netwerkin.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi? Tell 'em Sal sent ya! (big deal eh?)

sledgy

Try running 2K Setup again and do a "Repair Installation"

CheapAlert

I didn't mention I network installed Win2k and the CD-ROM drive doesn't work :O

Well, anyways i formatted C: and now attempting to reinstall Win98se via floppy swapping, so er nevermind.

CheapAlert

Ok, all fixed.

Apparently, my boot sector was write-protected during the install. Considering the ROM date was around 1999, it didn't prompt for it to be written.

So I entered the CMOS and disabled the write protection of the boot sector, formatted C:, reinstalled Windows 98SE disk by disk (About 127 of them), get networking support up, and then installed Win2000. Works now, with dual boot

Only problem left is my Trident Cyberblade3d i7 driver (3d no worky) and the non-functional volume control buttons on the lappy.

KDR_11k

Maaan, our school had a one-disk network-install system, you just popped in the disk, gave it a number and it'd grab the whole installation off the server. That's the difference between Win98 and Linux for ya (the disks installed Win2k, they were using Linux to do so, though).