elec storm disabled operating system?

[ethylone]

hi. i heard about your site from a friend. hope you can help me

i acquired a compaq from a friend from a friend from a friend who bought it maybe 2 years ago and has no warranty or reciept. we had an electrical storm and i think it fried my system because now when i turn it on its says,

invalid system disk
please enter disk and press enter

i tried to use my aunts windows disk to reboot? is that what its called? and it started to load, but then it said it couldn't because it was incompatible system error, she has a dell i have a compaq.

can i maybe download windows from somewhere, im at the library, and save it to disk and transfer it to my comp somehow? is this my problem, or is it something else?
thanks much for any help....
oh there is a sticker on the bottom with some serial code for the windows program, will that help me any?

[degsy]

Welcome

You need to download this file
http://www.cybertechhelp.com/html/do...load.php/id/32

Run it in windows and it will prompt for a floppy disk.
This will create a startup disk.

Boot from this disk and at the A:\ prompt type

SYS C:
then press enter

Remove the disk and reboot.

[ethylone]

Hey Degs,

i have done what you said and have gotten to the a: part. when i type SYS C: i get a message that reads

Cannot find the system file in the standard locations on drive c:. sys can only be used on drive c: to attempt a repair of an already existing installation of windows. use windows setup to make drive c: bootable.

what do you suggest i should do now?

'preciate the help.
ethylone

[degsy]

When you get to the A:\ prompt type C: to get to the C drive.

Does it work?

[ethylone]

yes i can get to the c drive

and when i type dir i get this

volume in drive c is win98se
volume serial number is 2e1e-0feb
directory of c:\
wininsto 4000 <dir>
0 files 0 bytes
1 dir 19,073.53 mb free

but that is about all i know how to do.

[degsy]

Unfortunately it seems asthough your drive has been wiped.

You will have to reinstall Windows.

[ethylone]

Hey there again

well I thank you for all your help Degs. I was hoping there would have been a way to avoid spending 100 bucks at wallyworld for windows, but i guess not. damn the man.

cheers,
ethylone

[degsy]

There are other options.

You could try recovering the data/partitions.


If not though DOS then adding your drive to a Slave in another PC.


Also, If using WinME then checkout local Stores, Adverts or Ebay etc.