help

[danoe]

One of my older systems has XP on it, and I decided to get rid of the puter.
First off I figure, I'll put ME back in it, then use my XP for something else.

I went to bootdisk.com and made my floppy of ME, I also made one of 98 and 98SE. Before I get any further, doesn't the 98se boot floppy disk work for Windows ME too? I thought it did, but since the ME option was at the site, I decided just to copy them all.

O.K., I did fdisk, rebooted, then formatted C, then switched to drive E, and entered "setup" but keep getting "Not ready reading drive E"
it told me E is my cdrom drive, but I tried D and F just for kicks, but still the same message.

Its set to boot from CDROM first in BIOS, and its also set on auto-detect.
I tried an external USB drive as well, not knowing if it would work anyway, but, well, it didn't.

The only thing I can think of, is that the drive went bad. I just used it yesterday, but I suppose its possible, although the light comes on when putting the ME CD in.

I'll try another CD drive in another computer to see what happens, but I just dont think thats it.

The other possibilty is perhaps the ME floppy disk is no good, it let me fdisk, format, scandisk, but it said bad command when I entered _dir, or dir.

Afriend gave me a copy of ME,
He claims it works, but thats another thought.

anyway, before I tackle this again sunday (while I watch the Vikings get beetup again) thought I would post now, and have some things to think about first.

thanks

 

[F_A_L_C_O_N]

So CD-rom is seen by BIOS, but autostart from CD doesnt work?
Because as far as I remember even Win98SE had autostart, so WinME definitely should have one.
BTW windows can partition and format disk, or better said you can while doing the install from the Win CD, so all I really do is fdisk and fdisk/mbr and occasionally write 0 to drive to clean things up for good.

Oh and I would edit out the part about ehm copy, something ehm.

 

[DanceMan]

You only need to boot from floppy if the install cd isn't bootable, although the floppy is useful for formatting a drive that has an OS you wish to replace. I suspect your ME disk is not functional.
No matter -- ME is poorly regarded. Use 98SE or 2K if possible, depending on the amount of ram installed. Under 128Mb use 98SE, over use 2K. At 128 arguments can be made both ways.
A "live" linux cd like Knoppix is useful for checking out situations like this. If it boots and runs from the cd, your problems aren't hardware.

 

[danoe]

Ya, I never liked ME either,but I'm getting rid of the computer anyway. Maybe I'll have to see about getting 98SE.
About the copy thing, I wasn't sure if I should put it in, but I needed to explain exactly whats going on.

 

[DanceMan]

Ya, I never liked ME either,but I'm getting rid of the computer anyway. Maybe I'll have to see about getting 98SE..

Give the poor purchaser a break. Put linux on it, if you don't have a better option than ME. They can always make the decision if they must have Win.

 

[danoe]

heh, heh, actually from a site school gave me, I can get 98se free, sooo , I'll be nice.

 

[Ponch]

keep getting "Not ready reading drive E"

You should try the 'dir' command at that point with any other CD to see if the drive itself is correctly configured (if it reads other CDs, then your WinME CD is defect).
Also it is not very clear if you boot from floppy or from CD.

 

[danoe]

O.K., tried that. I put an XP cd in at the point you mention, and its telling me something. Put the ME cd back in and error again, sooooo looks like its the WinME CD after all , eh? Thanks all for the help, thats o.k. anyway, I'll put 98se in it, I dont think there is such a thing as a GOOD WinME CD anyway, is there?

 

[DanceMan]

I dont think there is such a thing as a GOOD WinME CD anyway, is there?