Windows 95 and it's bootloader

[Sparda]

Some one gave me a laptop to fix.

When I turned it on I got the BIOS "insert bookable disk and press enter" message.

Booted spinrite, saw the drive, boot sector had no problems.

Suspected the MBR was hoased.

Saw there was 32MB of unallocated space.

Partitioned the 32MB of space, formated to ext2.

Installed GRUB.

Chainloaded win95 partition only to return to "insert bookable disk and press enter",

Any suggestions as to reinstalling the windows 95 boot loader?

Before any one asks, you know me, I'm a any thing but Windows advocate. The person who owns the laptop just wants 95 to work again.

[digip]

Some one gave me a laptop to fix.

When I turned it on I got the BIOS "insert bookable disk and press enter" message.

Booted spinrite, saw the drive, boot sector had no problems.

Suspected the MBR was hoased.

Saw there was 32MB of unallocated space.

Partitioned the 32MB of space, formated to ext2.

Installed GRUB.

Chainloaded win95 partition only to return to "insert bookable disk and press enter",

Any suggestions as to reinstalling the windows 95 boot loader?

Before any one asks, you know me, I'm a any thing but Windows advocate. The person who owns the laptop just wants 95 to work again.

Is there any options for boot order in the bios? If so, change it to the HDD as the first device and see what happens.

[Sparda]

GRUB booted off the hard drive. The hard drive is working fine and the laptop is trying to boot off the hard drive.

[digip]

GRUB booted off the hard drive. The hard drive is working fine and the laptop is trying to boot off the hard drive.

If you load a live cd can you see any data on the drive(other than grub)? Is there a valid install, or did his drive get f'd somehow.

Assuming his computer worked with windows 95 prior to this problem, what was the last thing he installed or downloaded? If you can backup up the data from his drive, then format it and reinstall and then move the files back over might be the easiest fix.

[tim.vangehugten]

Maybe you can use super Grub Disk (http://www.supergrubdisk.org/) to repair your MRB so you can boot windows. I use it all the time to boot win XP. (You can choose the option "direct boot" to boot a certain partition). I have a good experience with the super GRUB on cd-ROM, so I should advise the ISO file which you can burn on cd.

Hope this will help you to boot win 95...

[Sparda]

Maybe you can use super Grub Disk (http://www.supergrubdisk.org/) to repair your MRB so you can boot windows. I use it all the time to boot win XP. (You can choose the option "direct boot" to boot a certain partition). I have a good experience with the super GRUB on cd-ROM, so I should advise the ISO file which you can burn on cd.

Hope this will help you to boot win 95...

Super grub will probably just chainload it as well. It seems like the boot loader both on the MBR and partition have been destroyed. Probably a boot sector virus gone wrong.

Windows 95 is there, the file structure is intact, the boot loader is just missing.

[tim.vangehugten]

Super grub will probably just chainload it as well.

Super grub can also repair your windows boot loader, although it doens't always work like their disclaimer says but I've never had problems with it when I fixed my windows bootloader with it.

But as you say in your first post, it asks for a bootable disk, isn't it. You might try to make a windows 95 bootdiskette. So you can boot windows 95 with the diskette. You can find a win95 bootdiskette @ http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

Hope this will have, I only had win 95 when I was a kid (but I still have an istalation cd of it 8)  )

[mateusdelbianco]

grab a 95 boot disk, and then type "sys c:"

[Sparda]

Might a 98 boot floppy be suffice?

[Corrosion.]

try this site out

http://www.bootdisk.com/

[tim.vangehugten]

try this site out

http://www.bootdisk.com/

I already linked that site in my previous answer:p

[moonlit]

grab a 95 boot disk, and then type "sys c:"

Seconded. Should do the trick.