Operating

[NathanZimandGir]

I've formatted my p.c but i'm not sure how to load in the operating system, can someone please help.???

[GaryRouth]

If you have a Recovery Disk and the computer is fairly recent, you should be able to put the Recovery CD in the cd-drive and start the computer with that disk & it will reformat & reinsatall the original operating system (and often much of the bundled software as well). Any data added since the computer was purchased is erased. If you have backups of personal data and installation disks for software added since the original purchase, all these can be added back in after the recovery. I always recommend scanning backups with an up-to-date antivirus scanner before restoring them onto a system.

If instead of a Recovery Disk you have a Windows installation CD, then you need to know about using disk utilities to prepare the drive, limitations that come into play with hard disk sizes, which file systems are used with which versions of Windows, etc. etc. (and what drivers might need to be installed after Windows itself is installed: such as motherboard chipset drivers, Sound, Video, Lan, etc drivers...). In other words, you need a step-by-step guide. We have just that in our "Build Your Own" section. Follow this link, and head to the latter stages of the build, "Preparing the hard drive" ...etc. http://www.pcmech.com/byopc/index.htm

If you are somewhat familiar with this process already, and are sure that your current setup of the hard drive is OK (regarding partitioning and formatting), then to install a recent version of Windows 95B/98/98se/Me - if you have the option to boot from the CD drive in the Bios, just disable the Bios Antivirus, pop the Windows Installation CD in the drive, and follow the prompts to install.

Best of luck
. . . Gary

[NathanZimandGir]

I don't think nmy computer is reading my D drive to you know how i could change it

[GaryRouth]

For a computer that has no operating system to read from a CD or DVD drive, that drive will have to be in the list of devices to try booting from in the motherboard's Bios. When the computer is powered on, a banner usually displays, "Press DEL (or F1, F10, etc.) to Enter Setup". If you do so, you'll enter the Bios Setup menu screens. On one of the menus, there will be a Boot Order. The CDROM will have to be one of the devices listed.

If this is an older computer [for example, from the 486 or early original Pentium days], it might not have the option to boot from a cd-drive. In that case, you'll have to boot from a floppy first, and then switch over to the cd-drive. There are fine bootdisks available at http://www.bootdisk.com

[NathanZimandGir]

Thanks Gary iv done all that. I'm following the instructions from the website you gave me and it say that i have to install a file called 'edit.com' from my system disk on my hard drive, how am i supposed to do that?

[GaryRouth]

If you've looked at the part of the tutorial that tells you how to prepare your hard drive, and if this computer is only five or so years old or less, then it's likely you can just boot from your Windows installation CD. [...and not have to worry about editing files...]

Enter the Bios Setup screens & set your CDROM as the 1st boot device (if there's a list, scroll through your choices until you see one with the CDROM listed first). Then put in your Windows CD & let Setup start - and follow the prompts.

If the system doesn't boot from your CD-drive, then download a floppy bootdisk from http://www.bootdisk.com that matches the version of Windows you have, and use that to boot the system. Then from the A: command prompt, type in the letter of your cdrom drive followed by a colon. If you use the bootdisk.com floppy, your cdrom might have the "R" for it's drive letter, so you'd type R:

Once at the cdrom drive letter prompt, look for the Windows installation folder (if Win98, starting setup would loook something like R: \Win98\Setup)

This all assumes you have a full Windows installation disk, and not a Recovery Disk.
. . . Gary

[NathanZimandGir]

The startup turns out something like this (after i've inserted the boot and the c.d)
Starting Windows 95...
Hitachi CD-ROM device driver'HIT-IDE.SYS'version 1.06d2
Copyright Hitachi ltd 1994-1996
Device name :0EMCD001
DEVICE DRIVER NOT FOUND: 'OEMCD001'
No valid CD-ROM device driver selected
Invalid directory

(How am i supposed to register my CD-ROM driver)

[GaryRouth]

Sounds like you're trying to re-install Win95?

If so, try the downloadable bootdisks at http://www.bootdisk.com for the version of Win95 you'll be using. Set the floppy as the 1st boot device in the computer's bios, and boot.

Once at the A: prompt, put your Win95 cd in the cd-drive.
Then from the A: prompt, type R:
Then from the R: prompt, type cd\Win95
Then from the R\Win95: prompt, type Setup
and follow the prompts.
. . . Gary

[NathanZimandGir]

Hey Gary
Cna i ask why you want me to type R:????

[GaryRouth]

You type whatever drive letter is assigned to the cd-drive. If you watch the screen while the computer boots from the floppy, it should mention in one of the lines (just when it has loaded the generic OakSys cd-drive drivers & detected your drive) what letter it has assigned to it. For most bootdisks from bootdisk.com for Win9x, it assigns the drive letter R (probably for "Reader").
. . . Gary

[NathanZimandGir]

On bootdisk.com i can't find a WINDOWS95 bootdsik

[NathanZimandGir]

Thanks so much for your help Gary My computer is now fixed

[GaryRouth]

Nice job!
. . . Gary