I have an old 486 I want to get working. The HD was formated and the boot disk I have won't work with it for some reason. The system is totally dead. it won't even reconize the A: drive. I don't have a copy of DOS just win 3.1. I Know that there are some sites that have downloadable boot disks, BUT I can't download them. I am on a MAC now, and it can not run a .exe files, which is all I can find. If someone can lead me to a .zip file or something else that might help, I would be greatful thanks

To Format A PC With No Book Disk: Use A DOS Command To Type The Following: cd c:\windows\command\ format c:\ Where c is the harddrive thanks

Can you get into the BIOS? Check whether 1.44 is selected for the A: floppy drive there. If the bios is right, ribbon bad or nor connected correctly to the A: drive are the next most probable things. From what little you've said, it could be a bad power supply or something also. The power supply usually hangs during the boot process when it is the problem.

Ok, I got my A: drive up, but I can't get the computer to reconize the C: drive at all. so I can't install windows. I have a old Win95 boot disk I am booting with. I checked the BIOS and the drive specs are right. the battery seems ok. the date was wrong but not reset. the bios says I do infact HAVE a C: but I can't access it in dos. To let you know how it got thiss bad, I will tell you the stupid thing I did; I got a new computer. and decided I really didn't need this one any more. so I claened house and then formated the HD from the BIOS. then packed it away. 2yrs later my girlfriend wants to play/work with it and now I am trying to get it working. the HD should be totally clean. all I have is a few old WIN 95 boot disks and a old WIN 3.1 set of install disks. ( I gave the WIN 95 away) so what can I do??? the system is a 486DX American Megatrends is what is says when it starts up. the HD type is 47. ok that is all the information I can possibly give you guys I hope it

Thanks for the help. OKAY , Now I got my A : drive working, but the computer is not reconizing the HD. There is one there. it is in the bios. ( all the setup and address stuff matches what is printed on the HD ) so now what?? I think the battery is ok because the date was not reset. it was wrong, but it made it to 2000. it was just off about 6-7 months. ANYWAY, I also tried to run my WIN 3.1 install disk. but it can't access or write to the HD so no luck