Windows will not start I would appreciate help. I am out of my depth. Dell Dimension XPS M200 with Windows 95 There is a CDROM read drive. The C drive is partitioned into c, d and e The computer was given to my granddaughters. A number of files have been deleted. As a last resort I would be happy to reload Windows 95. DOS Setup shows the CD drive, but when F: is entered at the prompt it is not recognized. Norton Rescue Disks exist Disk 1 has Autoexec, Autoexec, Bootinfo, Cmosinfo, Command, Config, Config.sus, Fdisk, Format, MSDOS, Partinfo, Rescue, SysUser Disk 2 has Disk Edit, NDD Disk 3 has Ndiags, Unerase, Unformat Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thank you. Ken White

Boot up with your norton rescue disk and type "format C:" in the dos command line if you want to wipe everything of the hardrive. Then Insert your win95 cd and type setup, and follow the on screen instructions. If you want to remove all the extended partitions and make your hardrive into one drive the run fdisk then delete extended and vurtual dos drives and then delete the primary dos partition. Then Create another partition using all of your disk space 100%. After this your will need to format your hardrive and re-install windows.

Hi Ken, If the laptop was a gift now seems like the best time to reformat and reload the os,I assume that you have the 95 disk for the machine.Although i would be very tempted to get 98SE and upgrade now while you have the oppertunity. I just looked, your dell comes with 64mb ram so 98SE sould be optimum for this machine,you can get 98SE fairly readily, and pretty cheep if you look around at markets and so on. once you have the disk, follow the formate procedure this thread a few down from you, http://computing.net/windows95/wwwboard/forum/153555.html or ofcourse use the 95 disk you have,good luck. Oz

Hi Ken, Joel, ozyoiy, hello everyone, Ken, I like you would make sure you can first get the cdrom to work from the bootdisk or DOS prior to formatting the hard drive. Try G: and R: to access the cdrom. Some bootdisk will create a ram drive thus bumping the cdrom up one letter, in your case making it G:. Others will make the cdrom R:. Post back after trying those. Best Regards, Mesich

look here;http://www.windowsreinstall.com/install/tips/index.htm

If I were you, I would go to www.bootdisk.com and download the program that creates a boot disk, whether you decide to go with 95 or 98. The file you download is not a boot disk, it is a program that will create a boot disk for you. Download the program, put a floppy in the drive, and execute the program. The reason I'm suggesting this, is because from what I've read here, you don't have a boot disk capable of seeing the CDROM, and you'll need it! Good Luck raincheck

Hi Ken, Joel, ozyoiy, Bil, Raincheck, hello everyone, I would do as Raincheck suggested and download a bootdisk. The necessary files are not listed in your original post for cdrom support. Best Regards, Mesich