HD: Boots okay in one PC, "no OS" message in another

[CobraPilot]

I rebuilt an old PC (166mz) for my elderly mother-in-law mostly for simple e-mail use, using a spare 1.7gb HD; I loaded WIN98SE as its OS, and it worked just fine. However, I underestimated the space needed for various programs, and found space to be very tight on that HD. (Obviously, I should have known better!)

I also ran into a snag when we got her an inkjet printer: Required a faster CPU, 233mzh or better.

Soooo, I brought out an old PIII 400 mhz machine (which started life as a WinNT computer workstation with a 3.2 gb HD), cloned the 1.7gb HD to a spare 4.3 gb HD, and thought that would solve all my problems.

WRONG! When the PIII boots, I get a "no OS" message. Installing the cloned 4.3gb HD back into the P166 PC, it boots just fine. So, I solved the "out of drive space" problem, but still can't use the printer.

What the heck is the problem here? I'm probably overlooking something very simple but I can't figure out what it is.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Otherwise, I'll lose my "guru" status with my MIL!

[Dr_Layne]

Check the bios on the PIII make sure it see's the hard drive. Also check the boot order and put the hard drive first.

[oldandinthe way]

Can you have incompatible revs of the IDE interface? I've had older IDE recognized on newer IDE interfaces.

[Des]

Are you getting the 'No OS' message on post (when the machine is doing a self test and displaying either a splash screen or memory info) or after post when it is attempting to load W98SE?

I wonder if it might be some sort of driver issues.

After you check cables and BIOS settings to make sure it is none of those things, you can try a clean install on the new machine. Also, with 400mhz CPU you can load W2K if you have it instead of w98se might solve some issues too.

--dES

[deckard8]

Sounds like an MBR (master boot record) problem.


What drive was win98 installed to in P166 ?

If it wasn't drive 0, but another device like drive 1 then
you will have problems transfering it to another machine
because the master boot record will be pointing to drive 1
to boot when it should be pointing to drive 0.

Booting to dos in PIII with dos boot disk and typing Fdisk /mbr
to rewrite the master boot record may fix the problem.

[CobraPilot]

Many thanks to those who have offered suggestions!

My troubleshooting efforts have been delayed because of other priorities, but I will soon turn my attention to this problem and report my results.

In response to some questions and comments:

The "no OS" message appears during boot-up. I get nowhere near the Win98SE screen.

As to using Win2K: I'm using 98SE is because I have a "store-bought" installation disc, left over from a previous upgrade. I don't have W2K. For a P166, the original CPU, I figured W98SE was about all a P166 could support, and it does, in fact, work okay.

The drive works just fine in the P166, but not in the PIII 400, so I do need to doublecheck that the PIII IS "seeing" the drive. I used "cloning" software provided by the drive manufacturer to transfer everything from the small drive to the larger one.