i am having probs with a compaq prolinear. it used to have ibm dos and windows v 3.0 but i had to format to install 3.11 but now i cant get it to accept any ms dos versions it keeps saying non system disk and to insert system disk and press enter.But when i do this it says incorrect operating system.I tried running os2 cause it used to have the blue splash screen with ibm logo but it wont boot off that even,the only thing i can get it to boot off is win98 boot disk,so please can someone help me.

Did you format using format C: or Format C: /s? If your Win 98 boot disk is from another computer you have in the house, go to that computer copy the file FORMAT.com and FDISK.exe onto your Windows 98 boot disk. You will find them in C:\Windows\Command. Try formatting the hard drive again, using the Windows 98 bootdisk. Just use the Format C: command with no switches, (don't type FORMAT C: /s. After this format see if it will boot up to your DOS disk. Its hard to believe that both your DOS and OS/2 disks got corrupted but we all get old. If that doesn't work, try downloading DR DOS 7.03 and give that a whirl. ----------------------------------------- his works fine for win 3.1, WFWG and other programs originally written for installation with MSDOS-you can use the DOS software for your soundcard, CD-ROM etc. ftp://ftp.lineo.com/pub/drdos/DR-DOS.703/images/ You need 5 formatted 1.44 Meg floppy disks. Create a Temporary directory on your hard drive Download the 5 install disk images disk01.144 disk02.144 disk03.144 disk04.144 disk05.144 Download mkdskzip.exe Double click mkdskzip.exe or type mkdskzip.exe from the same temporary directory in DOS. A few files will be unzipped. Double click makedisk.exe Makedisk will give you instructions from there on. When you are done with all 5 disks, reboot your computer with disk 1 in the floppy drive. Your DOS installation will begin and you will be prompted for disks. Here is the home page of DR DOS.org http://www.drdos.org/ DR DOS forum is here; http://senac.com/forums/4356/

One possibility is you formatted with a Windows 98 boot disk in the first place, and you left the (Y) about supporting large drives. If you did the drive is set up for fat 32. Run FDISK. If the win 98 FDISK thinks it is a normal DOS partition and the older dos thinks it is a NON DOS partition, that is what you did. In that event remove the partitions with Win 98 FDISK and FDISK with the DOS boot disk. That way you CAN'T go wrong.