inaccessable boot device!...not again

ive had my nf7-s running cherry for over 2months now. my comp freezes every once in awhile, but nothing big. 10minutes ago while on aim it froze...was on for a few days before this. so i restart the computer..get through, get my beep (good lol), loads windows 2k..then when it gets to the second color win2k loading screen it stops about halfway on the blue bar like normal..goes 2 bars then stops. then i get the bsod "inaccessable boot device")..ya i know i spelled wrong. i remember right before the first froze occurred, i heard my hardrive being accessed...just the normal sound.

so i restart, reload bios defaults...same crap. restart, in safe mode....same bsod. im thinking i need to reformat...but nooooooo i dont want to again ..had alot of crap on that drive i havent backed up but i needed too

any ideas or tips?

thanks
brandon

Is your HDD(s) connected to a PCI controller card, like a Promise or Highpoint?...or are you possibly running your HDD(s) off of the onboard SATA controller?

no, im not that stupid

Give this a try...with only the system/boot drive in the system, or powered on, boot to a DOS or Win9x Start-up disk that contains fdisk.exe and run the following command...

FDISK /MBR

This re-writes the Master Boot Record and erases the disk signature associated with volume GUID.

dumb question....can i just use my win2k cd to do this? or do i need to make a disk down here on my win98 box.

does fdisk.exe come on a standard win2k cd and a 98 boot disk? dont feel like making a floppy lol.

thanks for your help so far

You can use Win98 to create a startup disk...Control Panel | Add/Remove programs | "Startup Disk" tab (if I remember right). When the disk is complete and ready to use, it will need one more file added as follows...Go to the A: prompt and type:

COPY C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\SYS.COM...You'll then have a complete boot disk, with fdisk.exe included.

Well, w/ Win2k, you can use your install CD to boot to the recovery console, and use the following commands:

fixboot
fixmbr

Those will write you a new bootsector. You might have some luck getting into Win2k that way, at the very least to back up your files.

ok oni thanks...i also just got a 98 disk made...so i will try both methods and report back in about 10min or so...thanks

ok i did the recovery console method instead...less hassle. and did both commands...still the same

is my only option reformatting? i dont have time to have comp downtime really so i need to fix this in a few hours ....gahhhh

Are you overclocked? Data can get thrashed if you overclock too high ( I know from experience). That might've caused your initial problem

What I would do, if you've also tried redduc900's method, is to put the drive in another system, and copy over all your data, then do a full format, writing 0's to the drive before formatting/partitioning.

i did when i first had it setup. but its been over 3 weeks now at stock speed.