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I recently found an old laptop and it has windows 98 installed on it. The problem is it goes straight to the "C:\> prompt" and I can't get passed that. I typed "win" as the command and it tells me Bad Command or File Name. Please help. PS: This laptop is very old doesnt have floppy drive or CD rom drive.
Key in
CD WINDOWS
DIR
Do you see a bunch of files? If so key in WIN but notice that the path must be messed up ... better check the PATH statement in AUTOEXEC.BATBest
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Try typing the command "dir" at the DOS prompt and see what happens. A bunch of text should scroll across the screen. Look for the Windows directory. Type cd\win. Press enter. Then type win. It should load after that.
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I think the last person that used it did a format c:/s on it. That removed everything on the hard drive by formatting it. Then the system files were installed to make it bootable. Doing a dir at the c:\> prompt will probably only show command.com.
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I'll guarantee you that DAVEINCAPS is the WINNER of this contest.
All you are gonna find, on that hd, is the "system" or bootable files--there will be no Winblows.
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Sorry I didnt have time to come back and tell you the results. DAVEINCAPS is the winner. Nothing happens when I type any of the suggested commands. Any other suggestions? Should I get a preloaded hard drive?
Thanks for your help.
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Without a floppy or cdrom drive you're going to have a hard time with the laptop. You might look into getting one or both, even as external devices.
The other way would be to remove the HD and attach it to another computer, perhaps using an adapter I've seen on ebay. Then copy the contents of the win98 folder on the 98 cd onto a similarly named folder on the hard drive. Then reinstall the HD, boot up the laptop and run 'setup' from the folder containing the copied files.
It's probably not an easy process for someone not familiar with dos or computer hardware and you may need someone else to do it for you.
Plus, whatever hardware was not configured by windows would need it's own drivers and you'd have no way of installing them without a floppy or cdrom. This would be true even if you used a hard drive with windows already installed on it, as your hardware would be different and require different drivers. Windows would still run OK but some of the hardware--sound, video, etc.--may not be setup properly.
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As it is now, there's nothing on the drive to run windows. That's why the commands didn't work.
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 no cd rom/driver found wh...
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Windows 98 Acting Up
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