I inherited a Samsung NoteMaster 386S/25e which I can use a boot disc in the A drive to boot into C: When I take out the A disc and boot with the C: drive, I get "Missing operating system message on" My Autoexec.bat file reads as follows: C:\DOSSMARTDRV.EXE/X @ECHO OFF PROMPT $P$G PATH C:\DOS SET TEMP=C:\DOS HOW CAN I GET IT TO BOOT-UP ON THE C DRIVE AND THEN GO INTO WIDOWS 3.11?

You need an operating system. in this case dos. sys c: the hdd from your boot disk.

Yes - it seems like DOS was installed, booting from a bootdisk (of same DOS version) and entering sys c: as suggested may restore the necessary system files, allowing you to boot from the HDD. Should see 'system transferred' Doesn't look like Win3xx was installed - at least, c:\windows isn't in the path statement of your autoexec.bat Also, I hope those are just typos in your autoexec.bat Likely need a config.sys file as well.

alright check it out. I think that this is the the fix for this at least when me gives this problem, probly all os's though. apparently, the master boot record gets messed up and the recovery console is useless so use FDISK to fix the master boot record. even with me or XP make a windowsME bootdisk from bootdisk.com --- when you boot with this (make sure you turn off the virus scan thing in your BIOS) pick the start cpu without cdrom support. alrighty, type FDISK /MBR in the command line prompt. This will rewrite the master boot record... if you get a fixed disk write protect error then thats cause you didn't turn off the virus setting in your bios. Now reload the OS from your CD... you'll proply have to change the boot sequence in your bios a few times during this as well.... anyways, hopes this helps... I wasted about 6 hours of my life with this damn problem. theres no reason you should too. good luck!

In all likelihood, this is a 'dead post'... however Fdisk /mbr should be used with caution (if at all) He's able to read the hard drive, just not boot - likely the system files are corrupt, which is usually set right by 'sys'-ing the hard drive from a boot floppy. Your solution sounds... overly complex (to say the least) - you realize that this is the Win31 forum, George's OS is DOS (& Win31 maybe) - no CD involved here. fwiw - in nine years, on dozens of machines, I've never had a need to perform "fdisk /mbr"