Can anyone help? I'm a real computer novice, and I did something really dumb: While tidying up the hard drive, I moved a bunch of system files which were "loose" on C drive into a folder on C drive. I thought it wouldn't do any harm. Now Windows doesn't launch. I gives me the message "invalid system disk--insert disk and press any key". I guess it can no longer locate the necesary files. A friend gave me the idea of using a boot disk to get into DOS, and try to copy them back onto C. I thought I'd succeeded, but Windows still wouldn't launch. Then, I discovered that I hadn't succeeded in moving any of the hidden files that were also in the folder. I understand that for that ,I need xcopy, but my Windows 98 SE boot disk doesn't have xcopy on it. Can I download xcopy somewhere? Or am I completely barking up the wrong tree here? I'm hoping to not have to reinstall Windows, because there's a lot of data I'd like to save on the hard drive. Is there another way to go about this? Please help. Thanks.

1. Make sure that you don't have a floppy diskette in the floppy drive> 2. If you have a win98 startup floppy, boot from it and type: sys c:

Ah, yes - compulsive file tidiers - I hpope you've learned your lesson. To restore the system (boot) files, boot with the floppy and enter sys c: .. you should see system transferred You can extract most files from the Windows CD, using SFC from the 'run' box (such as xcopy.exe) Resist the temptation to close your request for help with semantically-null questions like “Can anyone help me?”

Since you don't seem to be very experienced, probably the best be would be to reinstall, but a few hints, or at least, thoughts I have gotten to the point that I NEVER just install to one big hard drive partition from the CD. I ALWAYS partition the drive--even my XP, which has one large parttion for X tra P utrid, has a FAT32 partition, so that if I need to do something with the drive with older Winblows (98) I can slave the drive and get to the other partition, but I digress. In 95/98, make two partitions, and copy your \Win9x folder to the second partition, as well as any other backups you need to do. That way, if you DO need to reformat the C: partition, you (hopefully) have saved everything to the second partition. You also use this second drive to save your data on. As long as you are trying to save your data, here, and NOT installed programs, you could slave your drive to another machine, and save your data off your drive, then reinstall. People who know me, here, know I can be a little rough, but I've been there, and a looooooonggggggg time ago, I've been know to "lose" a few necessary files--and then feel stupid.

A lot depends on just what (and how many) files have been deleted. Restoring the boot files with "sys" should at least resolve the "invalid system disk" message, but if other important files are also gone, new and different error messages may arise. Just to be clear - "xcopy" is not the solution Resist the temptation to close your request for help with semantically-null questions like “Can anyone help me?”

ham30, jboy & name, yep, yep & yep Just to be clear, with ATTRIB you could copy with COPY. But ATTRIB probably isn't on the floppy either. Just to be clear, neither does a MOVE. With luck, sys will do it. For reference for would-be tidyer-uppers, the root of a DOS box should only have about six files. One, because nothing else belongs there; and two, it's much easier to spot something which has sneaked in. If at first you don't succeed, you're about average. M2

Attrib is on a ~standard~ 98/98SE boot disk, existing in the created RAMDRIVE. "For reference for would-be tidyer-uppers, the root of a DOS box should only have about six files. One, because nothing else belongs there; and two, it's much easier to spot something which has sneaked in." When dealing with DOS, the root dir can contain up to 512 entries, files or sub-dirs. (Going from memory here on the number so.....) I do concur with your statement though. The less the better. Some older (compatable) programs want to install to the root of C:, and of those some won't work unless this is so. For those, install as directed, as this saves problems developing with those program. It's a good day when you learn something