# installing Win95 over Win3.11



## RTBD (Mar 31, 2003)

I have an AST 486SX that had a virus. I got rid of the virus
added what ram I had making 24MB and tried to fdisk and format
but is not letting me do so because of dos6.22?
I don't get that.


----------



## Mariusz (Mar 16, 2003)

are u trying to format and fdisk when booting from a floppy?


----------



## RTBD (Mar 31, 2003)

I have boot disks with CD rom on them and I keep getting a message that they will not work with this dos.
So I used the dos 6.22 disc and fdisk and reformatted and then
loaded 3.11 back on because it would not take anything else and now I have no CD rom and still trying to upgrade to Win 95.


----------



## Lurker1 (Jan 30, 2001)

Hi RTBD

Welcome to TSG

Is the cdrom run off a sound board or connected to the IDE port on the system board?

If its connected to the IDE port you can download a file to create a Windows 98 SE boot disk that should give you access to your windows cd for installation. Just run the file you download on a working computer and it should create a floppy boot disk you can run with your system. 
Using a window 98 boot disk gives you more cdrom drivers than using a windows 95 boot disk. Just be sure not to format your hard drive with it.

http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm


----------



## RTBD (Mar 31, 2003)

I fdisked and tryed to format but keeps telling me that format not supported on drive c?


----------



## RTBD (Mar 31, 2003)

Just so you know I did not try to format with the 98 boot,
I tryed to format with the 95.
I had fdisked and formated once already but could not load the
win 95 so tryed again and now seem to have a mess.


----------



## RTBD (Mar 31, 2003)

when I look at C:dir it shows me that drive c is MS-RAMDRIVE.
with format on it so don't understand why it says it is not supported.


----------



## RTBD (Mar 31, 2003)

Maybe I don't understand this but I feel like I need to wipe the hard drive clean and it is not happening.
Am I missing something?
It did have a virus and I did run thru to check and clean that up.
Had the stoned.empire.monkey virus.


----------



## Mariusz (Mar 16, 2003)

go to fdisk and remove the partition then format that way u will get a fresh clean drive


----------



## Lurker1 (Jan 30, 2001)

Hi again RTBD 

When it says that drive c is MS-RAMDRIVE the boot disk has set up a drive in ram (your memory) this is not your hard drive and there is no way you can format the ram drive. Your real hard drive should move to the letter D when you have a ram drive. Try a DIR on d and see if there are any files there and try using the command to format d: /s when you use the 95 boot disk.


----------



## Mariusz (Mar 16, 2003)

if c:\ is a ram drive, does it not mean that there is no real HD set up as a primary active partition?


----------



## Squashman (Apr 4, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Mariusz:_
> *if c:\ is a ram drive, does it not mean that there is no real HD set up as a primary active partition? *


That is what I was thinking as well. I am thinking there is either no partition on the hard drive or it is not active. If there was the ram drive would not be C:

go into Fdisk and view your partitions. and make sure it is the primary active partition.

If I remember correctly, after you create a new partition it will usually ask you to make it active and then tell you to reboot your system.

It has been awhile since I have done that.


----------



## RTBD (Mar 31, 2003)

This is getting very frustrating.
I have fdisked several drives before but have never run
into this.
I do not believe it is seeing a HD at all.
It is telling me that there are too many bootable drives
and then it says "invalid partition table"
How do I get to my C: drive now?


----------



## Lurker1 (Jan 30, 2001)

Well you still may have a virus somewhere. I suggest that you scan all your boot disks for viruses on a good system. once that is done try the command FDISK /MBR to rewrite the master boot record of the hard drive.

Is the full size of the hard drive showing up in the computers bios? 

You might also try removing the extra memory you have added. Possibly its bad causing your problems.

Finally you can go to the hard drive manufacturers and down load their diagnostics and test the hard drive. They usually also have a Zero write utility somewhere that will rewrite all your hard drive with zeros removing all the data on it. Then try fdisking again.


----------



## RTBD (Mar 31, 2003)

I am usuing the ultimate boot disk and in the section of 
Ranish partition manager and this is what it shows me here

# type Row Sys type Cyl hd sect start endg Partition size

0 MBR Master Bt Recd 0 0 1 0 0 1 0
1 Pri Unused 0 0 2 0 0 35 17
2 >Pri 1 win fat-32 LBA 0 1 1 987 11 35 207,462

When I go to view partitions it shows
Disk Drive Mbytes Free Usage
1 203 100%
C: 203

Now this is all greek to me and what can I do with it?


----------



## RTBD (Mar 31, 2003)

so I tried the fdisk /mbr
and then tried format c:
and it tells me ~ 
format not supported on drive c:
format terminated.

then I go look at dir on c drive and that is where it tells me
Volume in drive C is MS-RAMDRIVE
dIRECTORY OF c:\
15 files from attrib.exe to sys.com


----------



## Mariusz (Mar 16, 2003)

how does the bios see the HD?
is the autodetection on?


----------



## RTBD (Mar 31, 2003)

Yes it is on auto detect


----------



## RTBD (Mar 31, 2003)

When I reboot with a win98 boot disk to try to start with CD rom
it says that no drivesw found, aborting installation
then it goes on to say
--> error: pci read configuration failure
and a bunch of aic-several ###'s aspi manger for dos v. 3.68s

then it says microsoft ramdrive v 3.06 virtual disk C:
then it says that drive c does not contain a valid fat or at32 partition.

it says to run fdisk from the ms-dos command prompt.
is that the same as from the boot A:fdisk?


----------



## Lurker1 (Jan 30, 2001)

Yes that is the same.

How big is your hard drive? From what you have posted you only have 203 megabytes free to use. Thats not much for windows 95.

When you run fdisk pick option 4 to display the partition table and post what it finds here. Im thinking you need to delete all the partitions currently on the hard drive and then make one big partition.


----------



## RTBD (Mar 31, 2003)

OK,
I was able to fdisk and format c: /s the drive with a
win98se boot disk but it did not recognise my cd rom.
I went to driver.com and loaded a driver on a disk but how do
I load that from a: in dos to the c: to recognise it?


----------



## Lurker1 (Jan 30, 2001)

Does your windows 98 boot disk come up with the option to start computer with cdrom support? If so it should find and assign a drive letter to the cdrom and display it on the screen. 
Does the cdrom connect into the motherboard or is it plugged into a sound card?


----------



## RTBD (Mar 31, 2003)

Thank you,
You said the right thing for me.
Yes, it is attached to the sound card and I did load the drivers for
the sound card, cd-rom, VGA drivers before I fdisked the HD.
I now have Win95 loaded and am working with the display of things. Am running a virus software to check things out as the
monitor is displaying a pretty messy desktop.

Thank you all so much for your help.
I was ready to loose it on this one. Seemed to take for ever
but learned a lot about this site and all you people have to offer.
You are great!!!


----------



## ~Candy~ (Jan 27, 2001)

Don't waste too much time worrying about a virus, you did a hard drive format  just because the desktop looks messy...my guess is that you need to install the video drivers from either the motherboard cd, the video card cd or floppies, or download them via the internet....there should be a setup.exe program to run.


----------



## RTBD (Mar 31, 2003)

Yes,
Thanks again,
I am done messing with this computer,
I was able to load all the drivers and everything is
fine.
Thanks again for all your help!!!!


----------

