when ever i try to boot my 486 using the hard drive, i get this error: "Non-system disk or disk error Replace and press any key when ready" if i change the boot settings to boot off a disk, and use a boot disk, I can get to dos, where I run c:\autoexecbat and can get into windows. I use Fat16, and... I don't know what other useful information I can give. Other than my brother wanted more disk space on the computer and deleted random files, thus causing this error (supposedly).

boot with that same floppy and "sys c:", reboot and see if it takes you to a dos prompt.

tried that already, no effect. i've done: sys c: fdisk scandisk defrag

Is the drive set active?

Do you get any error messages at all when you attempt the 'sys c:' ? Do you have any sort of antivirus/boot record protection set in the BIOS? Any disk compression? It did work at one time didn't it - this is a new development?

"Is the drive set active?" when i did fdisk, there is only one partition and it says it is set active since it's the only one. .... for some reason when i did sys c: again, it works now. so i dont' know what to say, thanks? i *think* i did the first sys wrong, like a sys a: c: or something... i don't know.

Actually sys a: c: is the proper syntax to copy system files from a: to c:, but when run from a: (as in this case), you can shorten it to sys c: No matter - glad it all works now :)