Hello,
My HP computer failed. I was orginally receiving the "Operating System not found" error". I am now able to boot the computer up using a MS DOS startup disk. But, the problem is the machine won't recongize the c,d or e drive. How should I reload it. Do it need to reinstall DOS then contuninue with the reload or do I need a new hard drive?

Jose Pena II

After booting with your dos Windows ME diskette you can use fdisk and read with the last option what partitions types are present on the hard drive.If you notice you still have the C FAT 32 primary drive set active return to dos prompt and try sys c: .Reboot to C with a working system.If this fails you can also salvage the hard drive by writing zeroes to it.A program like Active@Killdisk boot diskette will correct the drive if there are no severe physical problems with it.After this simple procedure use fdisk and format as usual before installing the Windows ME operating system.Good luck.

You ideally need a Windows ME OEM boot floppy:

http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

Thats where I got the boot disk from. Like I said before Once the machine comes up. IT wont read the cd drive. I get the error "bad command" when I try to change to another drive. I was able to get into the BIOS and the harddrive, cd drive and dvd drive all show up. But I can not switch to either one to load the machine. I am beginning to think that a may need a new harddrive.

Jose Pena II

You need a boot disc (WITH CD SUPPORT )
Download a Win/Me boot disk with CD support.
If you just get a boot disk then you will be right back where you are now.