Hi Everyone,

I have an old compaq presario 5522 with windows 98, it has not been used for ages but i thought i would set it up for my litle girl,
When i start it it goes through the memory test and stops with just a blinking cursor, It will not start in safe mode and i can't get the BIOS up using the F2 key, the dvd drive doesn't work,... well it lights up but will not read a disk, i have loaded a diagnostic startup floopy disk and got the start up screen but it doesn't list the D drive, It lists the A floopy drive and the hard drive, but thats all.
I have reset the start up to the defaults and checked all the cables, put in a different hard drive to see if it works, {i have put the original drive back now} i have also tried with another cd drive, {neither were detected in the BIOS} and it still wont work!
I also tried to configur cd drive manually but with no luck, {any idea what it could be?}
I downloaded a windows 98 floopy boot disk but when i try to boot with it, i just get the message remove disks or other media and press any key to restart,
I found a really old boot98A floopy disk that it will boot with but everything i type in at the A:\> promt it just says bad command or file type, the floopy drive will read any disk, diagnostic, ms dos, but im not sure how to use dos commands,
Please Help!! Gayle,

Hello Gayle, welcome to PCHF.

That's quite a bunch of problems you have there. To start with, you mentioned your PC freezing during the memory test? If your PC freezes during that actual memory test (the part where you memory is counting up), this would indicate a physical problem with your memory and will need to get this replaced before you even consider doing anything else with the laptop. Faulty memory can all sorts of problems from Blue Screens of Death to data corruption, and may well have caused your current Windows problems.

As for the CD-ROM (replaced), is this internal or external (an external CD-ROM won't appear in BIOS from a PC this old, and you won't be able to access this device from DOS). Can you describe exactly what happens when you currently try to boot from your PC in Normal and/or Safe Mode? Does it just reboot when it reaches a certain point?

Hi,

Thank you geting back to me so quick,....This has been a real headache i should have posted this days ago!!! lol,
Well im still sitting at this compaq trying to sort it out, Ho by the way its not a laptop its an old desktop, {all in one, presario 5522} Anyway going back to this old dinosaur it does finish the memory count and i get the usual 2 beeps and a little message, kb ok, the drives {inturnal cd} and the keyboard flash ok, then i just get a light blue screen with a flashing cursor in the top left corner and then nothing, if i try to hit F8 safe mode when starting up it says keyboard error and i get a blue box left bottom saying F1 Boot, I know the keyboard works because when i start up in that old Boot98A floopy i can type at the A:|> prompt, {not that its much help!}
When it starts with that old boot 98 disk it says, CD-ROM Driver for IDE {four channels supported (C) Copyright Oak Technology Inc. 1993-1996 Driver version :v340, Device Name : Banana, Transfer Mode : Programmed I/O, Drive ): Port= 170 (seconary channel) , Master IRQ= 15, Firmware version :1.2g, then, Bad command or file name, then the A:\>, if i type anything it says file not found,
I downloaded a windows 98 boot floopy from bootdisk.com and a few other boot disks but the computer will not boot with them, if i put that old disk i have in first to boot up then change to another disk and type dir it will read the disk but im not sure what to do then,
I just read on one of the threads that if you take the battery out of the bios for half an hour the bios will reset itself, do you think that will work? if i could get the cd drive to work i could reinstall windows,
Oh i do hope you can sort this out! lol Thanks very much for your help,
Gayle

Hi Gayle, thanks for the detailed info there. Your not using a USB keyboard are you?

It looks likes to me like the disk you used is actually picking up the CD-ROM (or at least the first part of the driver has started there). To change drives, type in the drive letter followed by a colon, for example d:

Hi there,

Its me again,lol, im still sitting at this compaq computer,
My keyboard is not a usb connection just the normal one, I have tried to change to drive d: but it would not recognize this drive, it said invalid drive specification,and i also tried c: and everything i typed ie CHKDSK ect it said invalid media type reading drive c, abort, retry fail, i tried loads of commands and i just got the same message more or less, when i typed VER, it did list windows 98 ect, and when i typed VERIFY it said verify is off, Im not sure i am using the right commands as i don't really know to much about them,
What did you think about taking the battery out of the bios, would that make the bios remember to boot the cd drive, lol, thanks again,
Gayle

Hi Gayle are you sure it is f2 to get into the bios on most compaq's that age it would be f10 you need to be able to get in to the bios first to see if it will detect the hardrive Ect. Then atempt to get it booting after you know it sees the hard drive and cd drive or your waisting your time. Need to access bios first to check hard drive ect.