CPi D300XT - new hard disk installation

Question

Hello,   I have a Dell Lattitude CPi D300XT.   I recently bought a new hard disk (Seagate, Momentus 20GB, 5400rpm). After reading some of the posts i upgraded  my BIOS to A11.   I then seated the new hard disk into the computer and tried to install Windows 98 using the boot disk.   Initially I got the message 'Primary hard disk 0 not found'.   Then the drivers from the boot disk loaded and it said Windows 98 set up cannot be completed because your hard disk requires a special driver or is not functioning correctly.   What do i do!? Could someone please tell me! Really lost here! and please keep it as simple as possible!   Thanks!   Radar

leduke30 · Answer

Did you pull the IDE Adapter off the old drive and install it on the new one's pins? This is a common error.

leduke30 · Answer

Is there a jumper on the four pins on the right side? Remove it if there is. If that does no good or there is no jumper, you may have gotten a Bum drive or one which has been tweaked to make it Laptop brand specific. There have been a couple of posters on the forum who had that latter unpleasant experience  A thought occurred to me after the previous. When you formatted the drive, did you use the command  Format C:/s    W98 has that specific requirement  that did not carry over to the newer OS. The  /s transfers System Files to the drive as well as formatting it and makes it bootable. See if that helps any; just reformat the drive with that command at the A: prompt from the Boot Disk Message Edited by leduke30 on 03-07-2005 11:57 PM

Radar75 · Answer

yes i did. i also removed and re-seated the hard disk a couple of times just to ensure that i was fixing it right.

leduke30 · Answer

You're welcome.

Radar75 · Answer

yep done. that was the problem!   thanks a lot!   radar

tmwash · Answer

Hello, I had same problem when installing my hard drive, thanks so much for info, my frustrations have ended.

leduke30 · Answer

For both you troops and any one else interested, there a few tricks that help keep W98SE perking. They involve holding down the Ctrl key on boot and you boot to a W98 Startup Menu in DOS. If you have Boot or BSOD problems with W98/98SE, these work before Windows loads. Select Command Prompt Only and you get a C: \Prompt. These 3 commands at the C;\Prompt may help correct the problems C:\>Scandisk/autofix C:\>Scandisk C:\>Scanreg/fix The second scandisk will also do a surface scan of your harddrive for Bad sectors.    The next trick involves selecting the Safe mode option and trying that boot. If it works, go to Start/Run and type/enter  SFC. Let System File Checker scan your Windows installation for missing or altered files. There is one particular Dynamic Library file that seems to get lost with great regularity-setupx.dll-in the Windows/System Folder. You can restore it from your W98SE CD when booted up normally, but its lack will prevent a normal boot;only Safe mode will boot and a CD Drive will not work in that mode. Catch22!!!. The solution is simple; copy that file to a floppy diskette and put it away for future use while your computer is running normally. If you need to restore it using System File Checker in Safe Mode, the floppy drive will work in that mode. I have done this patch 4 times over the years, so this is no 'Pipe-Dream'.

Storage, Drives & Media

Was this post helpful?