Question Having trouble getting windows 98 to boot for first time

[Matthew_134]

I wanted to build a windows 98 computer from spare parts. I'm using a pentium 4 with 512mb DDR2 ram and 98 compatible video card. I can get 98 to install, it basically goes through the entire installation but when it's going to boot for the first time it just hangs on a blank screen with a blinking curser like it's command prompt. It won't let me type anything though. If I force a restart it'll go to safe mode menu and if I try to start it'll just hang up on a blank screen again. I'm not sure where to go from here. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[TerryLaze]

The blinking cursor means that the hard disk is bootable but doesn't know where to boot from,if you used an atypical for the time means of installation like usb the installation didn't know to use the internal hard disk as the boot disk.
You will have to boot from a dos disk or linux aor anything that will allow you to edit text files so you can edit the boot.ini file,it should look like the sample ini the important part is this
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
disk(0) means the first disk,as the bios sees them.
partition(1) means the first partition on that disk.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/311578/how-to-edit-the-boot-ini-file-in-windows-2000

 

[Matthew_134]

The blinking cursor means that the hard disk is bootable but doesn't know where to boot from,if you used an atypical for the time means of installation like usb the installation didn't know to use the internal hard disk as the boot disk.
You will have to boot from a dos disk or linux aor anything that will allow you to edit text files so you can edit the boot.ini file,it should look like the sample ini the important part is this
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
disk(0) means the first disk,as the bios sees them.
partition(1) means the first partition on that disk.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/311578/how-to-edit-the-boot-ini-file-in-windows-2000

I had installed from a CD drive but I'll check the boo.ini to look at this. Thanks for the advice.

 

[Matthew_134]

The blinking cursor means that the hard disk is bootable but doesn't know where to boot from,if you used an atypical for the time means of installation like usb the installation didn't know to use the internal hard disk as the boot disk.
You will have to boot from a dos disk or linux aor anything that will allow you to edit text files so you can edit the boot.ini file,it should look like the sample ini the important part is this
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
disk(0) means the first disk,as the bios sees them.
partition(1) means the first partition on that disk.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/311578/how-to-edit-the-boot-ini-file-in-windows-2000

From what I'm reading Windows 98 doesn't have a boot.ini file. When I'm starting the computer it is booting from the hard drive and it goes through the windows 98 start up until the point where it would have me pick my username but instead gives me the blank screen with a flashing cursor. (and keyboard won't work.)

 

[Matthew_134]

I have also found out that I can boot to safe mode although it doesn't give me a cd drive. In safe mode I'm not seeing any display drivers at all. I'm not sure if it's not supposed to show up or what.