Hello i just bought an old compaq desktop presario with a 1.0GB P90 with 16mb with no operating system and no cd. i am trying to install a cd and windows but it wont boot up to a dos promt on its own it goes right into an old Windows NT( which is password protected.. ugghhh!!) and when i try to boot up to the cd driver floppy it wont run it( it says invalid system disk) and then when i do get it to boot up to the a drive off a start up from another computer it and try to install the floppy and run the commands that way it says bad or missing Command Interpeter. what does that mean and what can i do to fix it? Thanks! :)

Bad or missing ci means the system can't find command.com Use any working computer and make a boot disk (format A: /s) without parenthesis. If you use a dos machine change the directory to C:\dos and copy format, fdisk, sys, and command.com to the new boot disk in A: If you use a windows machine, open the C:\windows\command folder and copy format, fdisk, sys, and comand.com to the newly made boot disk. Insert this boot disk in the p90 and reformat the hdd (format C: /s). You need to enter the bios and set the boot sequence to A,C Repartition the hard drive only as a last resort. After you are successful in reformatting the hard drive, add the cdrom and drivers.

I've got an even better Idea. Go to http://www.bootdisk.com/ and download a windows disk with CDrom support. Although that is all you need to do, I recomend typing the following commands.. C: CD \winnt\system32\config del sam.* That will Change the user: Administrator 's password to blank. (Reboot the computer, type in administrator as the user then hit enter) Now you have a working NT system. NT is so much better than Windows 95/98 you can't imagine. But you can do whatever you want.... Email me if you have any questions.

HAHAHAHAHAHA Ya all missed the boat, ya swabbies!!!!! The primary is NTFS HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

HAHAHAHAHAHA Ya all missed the boat, ya swabbies!!!!! The primary is NTFS or HPFS HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

What "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA" means is that Windows NT uses a different kind of file allocation table (FAT) than DOS, Win3, or Win9X. DOS and older Windows versions use FAT 16 as the system for managing files on hard drives. Newer versions of Windows (Win98) uses FAT32. Windows NT uses a different FAT system called NTFS. Solution: delete the partitions on your hard drive and create new partitions using a version of fdisk that came with DOS or Windows (not Win NT). That will make your hard drive either FAT16 or FAT32. Preston

You could try booting with a boot disk that will get you to a command prompt and open the file boot.ini. You need to set the ARC path to the location of the boot partition. Or a good ol fdisk and reformat does fine.