Article ID: 135461
Article Last Modified on 12/5/2003
APPLIES TO
- Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 3.5
- Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 3.51
- Microsoft Windows NT Server 3.5
- Microsoft Windows NT Server 3.51
- Microsoft Windows for Workgroups 3.11
- Microsoft MS-DOS 2.11 Standard Edition
- Microsoft MS-DOS 3.1
- Microsoft MS-DOS 4.0 Standard Edition
- Microsoft MS-DOS 5.0 Standard Edition
- Microsoft MS-DOS 6.0 Standard Edition
- Microsoft MS-DOS 6.2 Standard Edition
- Microsoft MS-DOS 6.21 Standard Edition
- Microsoft MS-DOS 6.22 Standard Edition
This article was previously published under Q135461
SYMPTOMS
When you try to boot your computer running Windows NT or MS-DOS, the
operating system does not boot and you receive one of the following
messages:
NO ROM BASIC : SYSTEM HALTED
Press a key to reboot
If you press a key to reboot, the message appears again.
NOTE: Depending on the manufacturer of the CMOS or BIOS the message text
may vary.
CAUSE
The CMOS or BIOS of your computer displays this message on your screen if
drive C, the primary partition on the first physical hard disk, is no
longer marked as the active boot partition.
RESOLUTION
To resolve this problem, mark the primary partition active.
Your Computer Runs Windows NT
To mark the primary partition active, boot your computer with a Windows NT
boot disk and run Disk Administrator. You cannot use the Emergency Repair
Disk (ERD), because it does not mark the partition active.
If you do not have a Windows NT boot disk, you need another computer on
which you can create a Windows NT boot disk:
- If you run Windows NT 3.1 on your computer and you have another computer
available that runs Windows NT 3.1, please see the following article in
the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
101668 How To Guard Against Boot Failure with a Windows NT Boot Disk
- If you run Windows NT 3.5 on your computer, and you have another
computer available that runs Windows NT 3.5, please see the following
article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
119467 Creating a Boot Disk for an NTFS Partition
- If you only have another computer available that runs MS-DOS, follow the
instructions under Your Computer Runs MS-DOS below.
Your Computer Runs MS-DOS
To mark the primary partition active:
- On a computer running MS-DOS, create a bootable floppy disk.
- Copy the file FDISK.EXE from that computer's DOS directory to the
floppy disk.
- On your problem computer, boot from the floppy disk.
- Run FDISK.EXE to mark the primary partition active.
- Remove the floppy disk from the drive.
- Reboot your computer to boot the operating system on drive C.
Additional query words: prodnt 2.11 3.10 4.00 5.00 6.00 6.20 6.21 6.22 1.3 2.0 2.1 2.2 3.11 wfw wfwg
Keywords: KB135461