I have been given a computer with a problem i cant fix and i was wondering if any of you have any suggestions. After rebooting the computer one night the computer started giving the error that no operating system is present. Thinking that somehow a virus got onto the system and deleted windows, i tried to re-install windows 98. I selected windows setup (choice 1) and it said that the hard drive already had an operating system on it. I then tried to start windows with the cd rom support. It brought up a command prompt saying A:\. I didnt know what to do to i typed e:\setup and got the windows 98 setup program to start. I thought i had figured it out. Then throughout the installation, at different points each time, i got an error that forced me to close the installation program. I finally got fed up with it and decided to post a message here. Can someone please help me??

heres what you do. youre going to lose everything, but who cares.

step 1) start your pc with a 98 bootdisk. when you get to the a:\ prompt, type "fdisk" then enable large disk support. press 4 and open up the partition information. t should look like this sort of.

Display Partition Information

Current fixed disk drive: 1

Par Stat Tpe Mbytes System Usage
C: 1 A PRI DOS aaa FAT32 100%

aaa=the size of your hard disk

if it doesnt remove all partitions by removing the logical first, then the extended, and the primary. then add partitions. make sure you add large disk support.

if it does look like that, then get back to the a:\ prompt and type "format c:" without the quotes. after that start the 98 setup program.

Try running scandisk from the boot floppy.

Can you do "dir" and get a list of directories on c?

Larry

I dont have a windows boot disk, is there anyway i can get ahold of the stuff and create it myself?

I created a boot disk, formatted the hard drive, and re installed windows. Now the computer will open windows if i have the cd in and choose boot from hard disk, but if i take the cd out and try to boot it says that there is no operating system found....any ideas??