well, its a Fujitsu MHM2200AT in a SharpAR50 laptop running WinME. here's how it happened: upon booting i removed the swappable bay before OS loaded- then, BAM! error, I/O error, replace disk then press any key- to no avail.

I/O is input output, no?

it was merely the CD ROM drive that was removed during boot, why would the hard drive get errored up? is there a remedy or am i at reformat stage?

this is a compounded problem cuz the drive in peril may still contain much needed utilities that had previously been deleted. i ran SpinRite last night but the disk is still in same condition: I/O error

what can i do to alleviate my woes?

Hi stjo...

To be honest, I have never had ME as an operating system. However, is there a way to do a repair-reinstall from the CDrom, or can you get that far? I know in Win98 I occasionally used to reinstall "over the top" to replace critical system files that got corrupted, I can only assume that ME has the same capability.

If that simply will not work, try Knoppix run from the CDrom. You can enter Windows, backup your data files, and at least save those. Again, I am not positive Knoppix will work on ME, but it's free, easy to use, and won't take a lot of time. Worth a shot.

stjo69,

During the POST [power on self test] WinME was probably looking for the CD drive and it wasn't there !!!
Results - A Crash !!!

1) Did you replace the CD drive and do another cold boot [start-up] ???
2) Is this where you are getting the message "Replace disk & press any key" ???
3) Exactly what disk [if any] do you have to "replace" ???

thanx for the responses.

well, upon booting it was the "hot swap" drive that i replaced while still booting and the message reads "replace disk and press enter".

i replaced both the swappable drive AND the HDD, to no avail. I/O error


several attempts, two different machines, same results: "I/O error replace disk and press enter"

i know there MUST be a way to get the harddrive to be recognized again. it was a simple stroke of dumbness that caused the error, why wouldnt a comparable idiot turn do justice?

again, i run WinME and the drive is a Fujitsu 20GB for a laptop.

please advise

stjo69,

You lost me !!! "I replaced both....... and HDD"

Where did this hard drive come from ????
And did it have an operating system [WinME] on it ????

I learned "the hard way" with my T21 Thinkpad, "hot swapping" the floppy drive and the DVD/CD drive would ALWAYS cause Win98SE to "crash" !!!

BUT, a shut-down and a "cold boot" would always load Win98SE again.

Give more details on this 2nd hard drive and exactly what WinME CDs you have on hand.

i tried booting without the swappable drive intact- no change in result.

one guy said it may be a simple BIOS prob and asked what model unit is the laptop- Sharp AR50 mfg 10-01.

well, i would think there would be at least one other lamo like me who is too anxious to wait until a clean boot b4 swapping out drives. somewhere.

Try removing the BIOS battery for a minute, or, if you can find a CMOS reset jumper, do a reset. THe BIOS may then find the drives upon the next bootup.