re: Windows does not start
Friday, December 7, 2007 at 9:00 am
Posted by Kiwi
(2104 messages posted)
Windows95 is too large to be booted up from any floppy drive, really. DOS can boot
that way, and the Emergency Floppy for Windows is a DOS disk. Windows95 has to have
the C: drive (Hard Drive) running for it to boot itself up. Computers from the time
frame that Windows95 was current in usually defaulted to testing the A: drive to
see if any system disk was there, and then when there was no floppy there at all,
moving to the C: drive.
A system disk is a particularly formatted floppy, or hard drive (or for newer PCs,
even a CD). The old PCs from when Win95 was a viable OS didn't all have the capability
to use a CD as a boot device, but even when they do, it's not a default option.
Each time a PC tries to start, one of the earliest steps in its Power-on Self-Test
("POST") is to show you a text message about SETUP. It will say something similar
to "Press F-2 to enter Setup". That is a program stored in what is called the BIOS.
In the setup, if you need to make adjustments to the order in which the PC looks
for System Disks, is that option.
Nick wrote:
>When I turn my computer on, the A drive never boots and there is no message
>on the start up screen of (starting windows 95)?
It's the C: drive that displays that message.
>
>How can I get the A drive to boot. My cd and dvd drive will not boot either.
.
Kiwi
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