good afternoon (here in France anyway). all data has just disappeared from my laptop except for W98 which I did not even know I had (I had W98 SE). cannot boot from boot disk supplied by manufacturers. I changed floppy drive with an another one I had from an old laptop, and tried 2 boot disks. I changed the boot sequence, nothing worked. I cannot reinstall W98SE as program disk I have is for a PC without Windows so it is looking for an upgrade disk. Before I reformat my hard disk, how can I check if the program disk I have contains a CD driver? I have reinstalled this software in the past and computer never told me I already had an OS on the system so I am at a loss to understand what happened! thanks in advance for any help and suggestions Dominique

You can install windows using a 'for PCs without windows' disk. Just rename the win.com file in the windows folder to something else. If you only have access to dos you can type in ren c:\windows\win.com win.abc and enter from the prompt. Then start the installation. When it asks what directory to install windows in it'll default to 'windows.000'. Choose 'other directory' and change that back to just 'windows' so that everything installs in your previous directory. Or if you've lost everything except windows I suppose you could format and do a fresh installation. I'm not sure what is causing the problem with the bootdisk. If you downloaded a bootdisk file you need to run it to create the disk. You can't just copy the file to a floppy disk. If it's an existing disk, it may just be bad. Test it in another computer to make sure it works.

Can you elaborate on "nothing worked" at the end of your first para please? This doesn't mean very much. What exactly did happen at each step, nothing whatsoever, error messages? There might have been something that would give us a clue where things are going wrong. DerekW

Thank you very much for your replies and apologies for the lack of information ("nothing worked") I cannot find a folder named "win.com" either through find or through windows explorer. can I just rename the whole "windows" folder? I found a boot floppy disk which I had done myself and allowed me to start the re-format and re-install procedure, but got the following error message: checking existing disk format recording current bad clusters complete verifying 19,06.31M 3 percent completed not ready format terminated I think I might have real problems as hard drive is making a funny noise. Yet when I ran sandisk through DOS, it found not bad clusters. Could be a mechanical problem. best regards Dominique

Win.com is a file in the windows folder. It's not a folder itself. But yeah, you've got problems with the HD. You could download a diagnostic from the HD manufacturer. There's probably a zero fill utility on it. Running that would wipe the drive and, if you're lucky, will allow you to repartition and format. However since it's started making noises you may end up needing a new drive.

I feel so stupid.... the reason all my data had disappeared is, becaus my son had swapped the floppy disk drive with a spare one I have from an old similar model. The hard drive sits in the same unit,which I had not realised. In fact, i was wondering why I could not find the hard disk in the old model and did not realise it would be protected within some sort of metal casing. Well, I have learnt something new. It's a miracle that the drive survived after the way it has been treated over the last few days (shoved into a bag, etc) I think this one is also sick but I can now entertain the idea of fitting a new one. This time, I am taking it to a computer repair shop! thanks again for your help and apologies for wasting your time. Great site and lots of info when I checked FAQ and old postings. Dominique

You're welcome. At least now you know what the problem is.