['SOLVED'] Win95 BIOS upgrade and HD failure

Hello everyone,

I'm sorry if this isn't the right place to post this issue, but I couldn't find a better one.

Summarizing, I needed to install Windows 95 in a PC for an experiment, and I wanted to use the USB ports (if possible). I found out that there is a chance to use these ports with the latest version of Win95 (i.e. Win95 OSR 2.5 C). So I installed this OS without problems and followed the steps in order to have accesibility to the USB ports (with usbupp.exe and usbupd2.exe). Windows found and identified the ports (at least in the device manager), but when I tried to put an USB stick on them, nothing happened. So I made my research and found a thread where someone explained that the problem could be my BIOS version, and that I should upgrade it to the newest one. So I did it. Bad decision... After upgrading my BIOS, Windows doesn't boot and I get a message "Missing operating system". I read in this forum that many people had the same problem, but they could solve it by changing SATA mode to RAID, wich I (think I) can't.

Another thing: I can boot from a booteable diskette with MS-DOS; nevertheless, when I try to explore my HD, I DO have "acces" to the root directory C:\> (I can see C:\> prompt in my monitor) but I can't go any further! I also tried the simple command "dir" and I get this message: "Invalid media type reading drive C. Abort, retry, fail?". And DOS stays in C:\>.

Some information about my PC:

Chipset: Intel 440 BX/ZX
Motherboard: Biostar M6TBA v1.3
Old BIOS version: TBA0224B
New BIOS version (wich I updated): TBA1124B

I will be very grateful if somebody can help me solve this mess.

Greetings from Argentina

washiloo

Upon your bios reset, the boot order was probably messed up. Make sure the HDD that you want to boot from is first in the boot order. A bios flash

EarthDog said:

Upon your bios reset, the boot order was probably messed up. Make sure the HDD that you want to boot from is first in the boot order. A bios flash

Click to expand...

Thank you for your answer. The boot sequence is correct (HDD drive C: is first in the list), but after the POST I get the same message ("Missing operating system") and nothing else happens...

HDD likely wiped out. Sorry.

RJARRRPCGP said:

HDD likely wiped out. Sorry.

Click to expand...

What? Is that possible? I've only flashed the BIOS, how can that wipe out the HDD? :s . I won't believe so easily there's no other explanation for this issue!

In your bios, do you have the ability to set the sata ports to IDE mode?

synthetic_fenix said:

In your bios, do you have the ability to set the sata ports to IDE mode?

Click to expand...

No, I don't have any SATA ports in my motherboard. I have only IDE ports and one HD.

Ok, my apologies, I didn't look up your motherboard first. Does your hard drive show up in the summary screen?

synthetic_fenix said:

Ok, my apologies, I didn't look up your motherboard first. Does your hard drive show up in the summary screen?

Click to expand...

No need to apologize! The answer to your question is YES. The following information can be seen in the summary screen:

"Pri. Master Disk: LBA,UDMA 33, 31Mb"

Does your BIOS have an option for try other boot devices?

synthetic_fenix said:

Does your BIOS have an option for try other boot devices?

Click to expand...

Yes, it does... do you mean an option for setting the boot order? I only have one HDD so the other choices are the floppy disk and the CD-ROM. As I said at the beginning, I've tried a booteable floppy disk with MS-DOS and it works, but still the hard drive doesn't work at all... It worked perfectly before the BIOS update took place, and I can't believe it just crashed down.

I have in mind to try 2 different things:

1) Format the HDD and re-install Win95 (wich maybe won't work because it keeps saying that my HDD has an 'invalid media type'...)
2) Return to my old bios version, wich won't solve the first problem...

I won't do anything until your next answer, of course!! By the way, thank you very much for answering so fast!!

washiloo said:

Yes, it does... do you mean an option for setting the boot order? I only have one HDD so the other choices are the floppy disk and the CD-ROM. As I said at the beginning, I've tried a booteable floppy disk with MS-DOS and it works, but still the hard drive doesn't work at all... It worked perfectly before the BIOS update took place, and I can't believe it just crashed down.

I have in mind to try 2 different things:

1) Format the HDD and re-install Win95 (wich maybe won't work because it keeps saying that my HDD has an 'invalid media type'...)
2) Return to my old bios version, wich won't solve the first problem...

I won't do anything until your next answer, of course!! By the way, thank you very much for answering so fast!!

Click to expand...

check the jumper settings on the HDD (set to master) and where your HDD is plugged in at on the motherboard (Primary master port)

that should get it working. and that looks a good motherboard IMO.

where did you get this board btw? i have a pentium 2 350mhz processor but i dont have a board for it.

washiloo said:

No need to apologize! The answer to your question is YES. The following information can be seen in the summary screen:

"Pri. Master Disk: LBA,UDMA 33, 31Mb"

Click to expand...

31Mb? You sure about that?

(G{in}[AK)TION] said:

check the jumper settings on the HDD (set to master) and where your HDD is plugged in at on the motherboard (Primary master port)

that should get it working. and that looks a good motherboard IMO.

where did you get this board btw? i have a pentium 2 350mhz processor but i dont have a board for it.

Click to expand...

My HDD is plugged in where it should be, i.e. the Primary IDE Connector. I don't really know which jumper settings do you mean, but I didn't touch the jumpers or the cables. I've only flashed the BIOS, and before that the HDD was working without problem. I don't know where does this MOBO come from... it's an old PC with an Intel Pentium II 350 MHz processor and I'm using it with research purposes. Have you tried Amazon? The MOBO's manufacturer is Biostar and the model is M6TBA.

cw823 said:

31Mb? You sure about that?

Click to expand...

Yes! Pretty sure! But I don't know what that means...

washiloo said:

Yes! Pretty sure! But I don't know what that means...

Click to expand...

so you have a 31mb hard drive? if so, get a bigger hard drive, if not then replace the hard drive and see if you get different results.

(G{in}[AK)TION] said:

so you have a 31mb hard drive? if so, get a bigger hard drive, if not then replace the hard drive and see if you get different results.

Click to expand...

Is this value the HDD size? That's really weird... because it's much bigger. In order to install Windows 95 I had to do a 2Gb partition. I don't know the real size of the HDD, but I'm sure it's much bigger than 31 Mb.

I'll see if I can format the HDD... although I don't want to!

EDIT: I'm formatting C: drive... it's a 2Gb partition, so the "31 Mb" info wasn't the size of the HDD. I'm losing everything... I'll try to re-install Win95 and post the results

Ok, after a few tries I'm back on my old BIOS version. Now everything works... except the USB device, but I won't try the BIOS thing anymore. I'll transfer my data with a network and that's all.

Thank you all for you help.