Random "Operating System Not Found"

My friend was having problems with her computer, Gateway P3 500 W98SE. Very
slow, hurky jerky mouse, weird problems. I'm pretty knowledgeable so I gave it
a try. Removed all kinds of spyware and finally got BOTH the CD reader and
writer to be VISIBLE. The writer disappeared a year ago. They were both on the
secondary. Thought is was the cable because not matter how I jumped, configured
the CDs only the one plugged into the cable master position (farthest away)
would show. Swapped cable all was well. I burn some CDs thought everything was
fine. Told her all was well pick it up tomorrow. This morning I power up and
get "operating system not found." Boot from floppy, FDISK gets an error
crashes. I try to run partition magic from DOS (both version 8 and 7 pro). Both
versions crash before they fully load, that never happened before. Sounded like
the hard disk (western digital) to me. I power off/on all is well now. Run WD
online diagnostic, says disk is good. I'm stumped. Any ides? Can you recommend
a diagnostic path I should be taking?

JustTrying2Helpp wrote:

My friend was having problems with her computer, Gateway P3 500
W98SE. Very slow, hurky jerky mouse, weird problems. I'm pretty
knowledgeable so I gave it a try. Removed all kinds of spyware
and finally got BOTH the CD reader and writer to be VISIBLE. The
writer disappeared a year ago. They were both on the secondary.
Thought is was the cable because not matter how I jumped,
configured the CDs only the one plugged into the cable master
position (farthest away) would show. Swapped cable all was well.
I burn some CDs thought everything was fine. Told her all was
well pick it up tomorrow. This morning I power up and get
"operating system not found." Boot from floppy, FDISK gets an
error crashes. I try to run partition magic from DOS (both
version 8 and 7 pro). Both versions crash before they fully
load, that never happened before. Sounded like the hard disk
(western digital) to me. I power off/on all is well now. Run WD
online diagnostic, says disk is good. I'm stumped. Any ides?
Can you recommend a diagnostic path I should be taking?

Based on the power off overnight versus power off/on, I would
suspect the battery for the CMOS. It probably charged up enough to
allow the boot after off/on. Replace it.

--
Chuck F ) )
Available for consulting/temporary embedded and systems.
http://cbfalconer.home.att.net USE worldnet address!