Windows not ecognised

[smithy]

We have two pc's at home. I reformatted one PC and tried to boot with win98 and it kept freezing. So I took the hard drive from pc1 and put it my second pc and rebooted that way. It loaded up and worked fine on pc2. However when I put the hard drive back in the original computer (pc1) it will not boot and tells me "Windows was not recognised" It offerred me 4 options:

1. Safe mode
2 Restart in safe mode with command prompt
3. Restart in network mode
4. Restart from last known good setting.

It doesent matter which one of these I click on it just keeps bringing up the screen thats say "Windows not recognised"

The pc configuration are:
PC 1 (The one I reformatted)

P111 800mhz
128MB Ram
20GB HDD
cd-rom
CD-rw

The 2nd PC which I used to reload win98 onto the 20gb HD is

P11
266Mhz
8GB HDD
cd-rom
cd-rw

Both using win98se

Hope you understand what I mean and what has happened. I would appreciate any help.
I feel my MOBO in P111 PC has died.
Thanks in advance
cheers
smithy

 

[T1junkie]

THat prompt usually occurs when you shut down you computer manuelly that.

have you tried booting into safe mode?
(Safe mode is a Windows mode that loads only required drivers/Progs its a troubleshooting mode)

you should have also been given the option to boot into normal mode

 

[smithy]

Yep, Tried all that. cant even boot into safe mode, normal mode or anything. screen just sits there and does nothing
Thanks for your relply
smithy

 

[Jorsoft]

Is your PC trying to boot from the win98 cd? Make sure that your cd-rom drive is one of the options in your startup; you can change this setting in your BIOS.

 

[smithy]

Ok, the Hd has win98 on it and will boot from my other pc. It works fine and is fully functional operating system. But when I put the hard drive back in the machine it came from it wont boot. I cant figure out why it will work as normal on one Pc and not the other. I dont have a problem with the pc booting, it starts up etc but just wont recognise win98. I feel its a mobo prob or a setting in the bios.
cheers
smithy

 

[Qiranworms]

Perhaps the hard drive jumper is on the cable select setting? That would explain why one machine works while the other does not...it could be as simple as an IDE conflict. Set the drive to master while making sure no other drive on the same IDE channel is master as well (if one is, by the way, that would answer your problem).

Edit: that makes no sense whatsoever actually...your computer seems to be recognizing the hard disk if it's giving you boot options...sorry...

Will the other machines NORMAL drive work on this machine? Or does the machine refuse all drives that machine uses...

 

[smithy]

Jumper settings are fine. Machine refuses all drives. Ok so its recognising hdd and giving boot options but why wont the boot options work???????????