[Zavien Doombringer]

Remove the Ethernet Card and reboot...

[BrooklynGOP]

What do you mean by "recovery disc" are you trying to boot off that cd?

[Zavien Doombringer]

What type of machine is it?

[dead]

Are you logged in?

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[afraidfortherepublic]

What OS are you using? I tried to install a CDRW in a machine using Win 98 to replace an inoperable CD and it couldn't be done because you need an operable CD drive to install the remote drive with Win 98. Newer versions of MS have the drivers available on the Web, but not Win 98. I had to take the machine in for repair and spend twice as much as the remote drive to have them fix it propoerly.

[End Times Sentinel]

I suppose me asking if you're logged in wouldn't be very helpful, would it?

Owl_Eagle

”Guns Before Butter.”

[UseYourHead]

You must boot the computer with the recovery cd. If the recovery cd is not bootable, then you have a floppy that also goes with that recovery cd.

If your machine is not set to boot from a cd, you must press F2 or DEL to enter the setup screen when you first start the computer and change the BOOT SEQUENCE to add the cd drive to the boot list and then make sure it checks the cd drive before the hard disk.

Once you recover your computer, use the driver cd for the network card and then install the writer software for the cdrw. The cdrw will work as a cd only until you install the writer software.

Let me know if you have any further questions.

[bedolido]

see what happens... now you have TMI...lol Puter-Nerds...lol

[erswts]

Once you try a Mac you will never go back.

[erswts]

Seriesly - try reversing the framasham cam.

[AlBondigas]

Physically swap your cd & cdrw cables w/ cdrw on primary (w/harddrive) & cd on secondary. Set pin to slave on both.
Don't mess w/ bios.
Create a start up floppy from ctl panel>>add/remove programs>> start up tab.
Reboot w/ floppy & select w/ cd enabled.

[TexasRepublic]

I think you need a much bigger hammer.

[L_Von_Mises]

A couple of things to consider.

If your machine is running (you said you can see the drives in Explorer) why do you need to wipe everything and start over? Are there some other issues that you are having? Are you just having problems with the new CD-RW. It might be a lot easier to try to resolve the problems than wipe everything and start over because all the info on your machine will be gone. Plus you will also have to reinstall all of your software applications that you have one your machine. With all of the updates and patches, that can turn into a multi-day process.

If the problem is with your ethernet card with Win 98 you can run into problems with conflicts with your PCI cards where they share IRQs. Someone else suggested taking out the ethernet card. I would try that. Then reboot and see if the problems persist. If not, you may just have to put the ethernet card into a different slot to alleviate the conflict. I have run into situations with win98 where I had to try numerous combinations to get my system to work. If you go into device manager you can see if there are any conflicts.

If the problem is your new CD-RW it is possible that you did not put the jumpers in properly for the various drives. That is the most common scenario. Make sure that your primary hard disk (the one with Windows on it) is plugged into the primary IDE controller and the jumper is set to master. Then put the Zip drive on the same cable and set the jumpers to slave. Note that it will also assigned a drive letter to your Zip drive. Is there a reason you need both CD-Roms? If you don't think you need both then take out the CD-Rom and use the CD-RW as the only drive on the secondary controller and set it for stand alone or master. If you wish to use both it should not be a problem. I have built systems with two and not had problems. If so, connect the CD-Rom to the secondary IDE controller and set the jumpers to master. Then connect the CD-RW to the same cable and set it to slave. Once you have all yor drives installed, reboot and see what the display says on startup. It should list the two controllers and state what drives are on each. Make sure everything is there and in the location that you want it.

Note: To get both CD-Roms working you may have to remove them both and then install them one at a time (primary first then start it up, shut down again and install the secondary and start it again). Sometimes the registry will not allow you to swap it this way so you may need to remove the drives in device manager then shut it down and go through the process of installing them one at a time as I explained above. (There is a way to reset them in the registry but if you are not 100% sure what you are doing then don't do it.) Just make sure that you make the necessary jumper changes each time you reboot if there is a seperate setting for stand alone vs. master.

You should not have to worry about drivers in Win98. The only time you should need to install drivers for a CD-Rom is with DOS.

If there are other reasons (just want to start everything from scratch, etc.) why you want to reinstall windows then once you have all the drives properly configured and are sure that there are no conflicts with any of your cards follow these suggestions. You now have two CD-Roms (I know one is a writer but you can read from both) and you may only be able to install from the first CD-Rom that it sees. Make sure that the recovery disk is in that CD-Rom (the one set as primary and should have the lower letter of the two CD-Roms. Regardless of the drive letter, it may only install from the first one it sees - the one set as master. You may also have to have only one CD-Rom installed in order for your recovery disk to work. Seeing two might be confusing it.

Also, you may not be able to run the recovery disk from within Windows. You may have to create a boot disk and run it from DOS. Once you are in DOS you can then format the drive and install the OS with the recovery disk. Trying to get your PC to boot from the recovery disk may be an option if it is bootable. Some are and some are not. If it is, you can go into setup when your computer first starts up and go into the settings and set the boot sequence to CD first followed by floppy and then followed by your hard disk. If your recovery disk is bootable then it should work.

Good luck. I hope that this helps. Feel free to freepmail me with any questions.