# [SOLVED] windows 95



## misty black (Feb 9, 2004)

i have a older gateway computer with windows 95.
i cannot get windows to open, when i boot from the boot disk i get the following message:
the following file is missing or corrupted: command.com
and also: type the name of the command interpreter (e.g.c:\windows\command.com


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## ~Candy~ (Jan 27, 2001)

Hi and welcome. Do you have a windows 95 boot disk?

If so, can you boot with it to a command prompt, and then type


sys c:
and press enter (watch the spacing) it should say system files transferred. Then remove the disk and try to restart. Be sure it is a Windows 95 boot disk, NOT 98.


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## misty black (Feb 9, 2004)

i do have a windows 95 boot disk and am able to type commands. as soon as i hit the enter button up pops the two phrases command .com is missing corrupted and type the name of the command interpreter.
thank you for your response


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## ~Candy~ (Jan 27, 2001)

Try this, type

a:\command.com
then press enter


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## misty black (Feb 9, 2004)

Thank You Again
I have trie typing A:\command.com and have received the same results.
I would be willing to empty my hard drive and reload win95 if someone thought this would work and maybe instruct me how to do it.


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## Squashman (Apr 4, 2003)

Download a new bootdisk from http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm


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## ~Candy~ (Jan 27, 2001)

I'm concerned that perhaps the hard drive isn't being recognized. Can you access the bios setup and see if you see the hard drive there? Also, can you look at the floppy disk and double check to see that command.com does in fact exist on it? It may be a hidden file, so you will have to change the properties on the disk to be able to see all files.

Or better yet, get one from here, download, save to desktop, NOT to floppy, then double click on the file and follow instructions to create disk. Then be sure bios is set to boot to floppy first, then try that disk instead.

http://freepctech.com/pc/002/files010.shtml


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## misty black (Feb 9, 2004)

i just down loaded a new boot up disk and am getting a A:\ prompt. i don't know what to enter. Also please tell me how to view the bios setup
thanks again


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## ~Candy~ (Jan 27, 2001)

If you are at an a: prompt, type

sys c:
and press enter.

I hope you downloaded the correct version for 95? There are several different ones and I believe using the incorrect one will result in an incorrect version of dos error message when you restart.


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## misty black (Feb 9, 2004)

i downloaded the boot disk labeled win95&95A and just now downloaded 95B.
i also typed "sys c:" to no avail
I certainly appreciate you patience, Thanks.

Maybe you can advise me as to how i view the bios


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## ~Candy~ (Jan 27, 2001)

What did sys c: do? Did it say system files transferred? Or an error reading drive c: message?

Usually bios access is DEL, F 1, F 2, or Compaq machines F 10 when the computer is first starting up.


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## misty black (Feb 9, 2004)

entering c: sys gave me a line that said bad command or file name. i tried c: sys that gave me a c:\.> after that c prompt i typed install and got not ready reading c:> abort, retry fail

hope you can give me some insight as to what this latest means.

thanks again


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## ~Candy~ (Jan 27, 2001)

Spacing is important..

sys(space)c:
then hit enter.

Not at a c: prompt, at an a: prompt.


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## misty black (Feb 9, 2004)

sys c: gives me the following: "bad command or file name"


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## ~Candy~ (Jan 27, 2001)

At an a: prompt???????


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## misty black (Feb 9, 2004)

yes


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## ~Candy~ (Jan 27, 2001)

And if you type

c:
and press enter,
then
dir
and press enter,
do you see anything listed on the hard drive?


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## misty black (Feb 9, 2004)

I typed the following: c: (enter)dir (enter) I received the following: cdr101:not ready reading drive c
abort, retry, fail?


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## ~Candy~ (Jan 27, 2001)

Ok, you need to access the bios setup then, and be sure we have a hard drive and cdrom appearing there.

Is there a history behind this problem per chance?


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## ~Candy~ (Jan 27, 2001)

> _Originally posted by misty black:_
> *I typed the following: c: (enter)dir (enter) I received the following: cdr101:not ready reading drive c
> abort, retry, fail? *


And to be certain, those are individual commands, not to be typed all at once.

Did the drive letter in fact change to a c:\ ???

Sorry if this sounds simplistic, it's hard to ascertain a user's expertise or lack thereof, in order to know how far to break the commands down....you aren't actually typing the words enter, correct?


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## misty black (Feb 9, 2004)

no i am not typing the words enter, but i will be the first to acknowledge that my expertise is questionable.
I don't remember if the drive letter in fact changed to c: i will check and let you know 
again i appreciate your patience and knowledge regarding this problem


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## ~Candy~ (Jan 27, 2001)

Ok, drive letter changing is important, also, don't choose to start with cdrom support when you reboot this time. If drive c: really isn't there, we'll get an error message. Then we are back to checking the bios to see if the drive is acknowledged there, if not, we may be dealing with connections inside. Again, it would be good if you would give us a brief history on the problem. Did things ever work? Was the computer moved? Everything that may have an effect on the hard drive going AWOL.


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## misty black (Feb 9, 2004)

I have not chosen to start with the cdrom support.
the c drive is acknowledged in the bios. But d drive is not d is cdrom drive. in the bios what should be the ordewr of booting
1. hard drive 2. floppy or just reverse?

this computer is used by my wife for typing letters only and worked just great until this happened. the computer was never moved until i removed it after this happening


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## ~Candy~ (Jan 27, 2001)

For our purposes right now, floppy, then hard drive.

Save changes coming out of the bios, then boot with the floppy disk, I'm assuming you are getting the menu? Choose without cdrom support, at the a: prompt, type

c:
then press the enter key.


If the drive letter changes, then type

dir
then press the enter key.

You should see a directory on the hard drive unless we have more serious problems.


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## misty black (Feb 9, 2004)

the drive did change to c: i entered cRESSED ENTER i then typed dir pressed enter.
ireceived the following: cdr101 not ready reading c
abort, retry, fail?

I am not seeing a directory on the hard drive


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## ~Candy~ (Jan 27, 2001)

Doesn't appear that the hard drive is being seen. Care to open the computer up to check connections? Per chance was the hard drive making any funny grinding noises lately?


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## misty black (Feb 9, 2004)

no noises! I will open and check for loose connectors.
i may not get to it today so i will get back to you when i do.
i certainly do appreciate your help and patience and admire your knowledge of computers. i wish you the best with your day trading i wish i had the guts


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## ~Candy~ (Jan 27, 2001)

Thanks, should have sold yesterday though 

Tuesday's another day.

Just post back when you're ready to go again.

I'm kinda lax on the weekends, so don't fret if you don't hear back from em. There are others who may have some ideas for you as well


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## john1 (Nov 25, 2000)

Hi Misty Black, Hi AcaCandy,

i suggest running Fdisk/status, only to see if any drives are there at all.
That should show the drives that are showing to the PC,
it wont format.
That wont alter the PC at all.
I have known where hard drives just totally fail with no warning.
Usually after moving a PC, as has been mentioned.

To run fdisk/status,
Check the PC is switched off,
put the bootdisk into the floppy drive,
switch on,
at the A: prompt type *
fdisk* then press 'Enter'
you should get a small menu with 4 choices,
choose display partition, i think thats '4'

This will not format your PC, it should just show any drives.
to exit fdisk, press 'Esc' (keyboard top left - usually)

If the hard drive is non-responsive,
i think 'Gibson' does sell a recover utility which is very well
thought of, and can usually extract some or more files from a
failed drive.
I will try to find a reference to it for you.

Regards, John


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## john1 (Nov 25, 2000)

I was referring to 'Spinrite' from Gibson Research.


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## misty black (Feb 9, 2004)

John1
Thank you for your response!
I did as you suggested and received the following:
Current fixed disk drive:1
At bottom of screen: No partitions defined.


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## misty black (Feb 9, 2004)

see page three


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## ~Candy~ (Jan 27, 2001)

Well, that doesn't sound good. All you did was stop at the first part, right? You didn't do any deleting of partitions?


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## john1 (Nov 25, 2000)

Hi Misty Black,

should have looked like this,










not quite the same, cos this was from a DOS window,
but near enough ...

John


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## misty black (Feb 9, 2004)

Hi John1 Again, Thanks for your reply
No my screen did not show all that the sample screen shows. I did stop at the first part and did no deleting of partitions


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## ~Candy~ (Jan 27, 2001)

Well, something bad happened to the drive from the appearance of things. I'm going to assume at this point there is no information that is going to be retrieved from the drive.


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## misty black (Feb 9, 2004)

Hi
I really did not want to hear that!
At this time do you think the drive can be reformated and windows reinstalled? If tell me how to do it.

Thanks


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## ~Candy~ (Jan 27, 2001)

Sorry  You can wait for second opinions, but that is what it looks like to me 

I would think it can be formated and reinstalled, DEPENDING on what really happened to the drive.

Try to follow along on this, and see if it will allow you to create a partition and set it to active.

http://client.henninger.com/pickup/learning/FDISK_Notes.txt

Obviously starting at the beginning, it doesn't appear that you will have the option to delete anything, as it appears they don't exist, but follow along very carefully and watch all screens and options.

What kind of install cds do we have that contains Windows? A restore cd or an actual copy of the Operating System?


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## kilowatt1 (Oct 27, 2001)

Could you tell us exactly what it says in the BIOS about the drives attached. It could be that FDISK is looking at the CDRom and not the hard drive, meaning that what Candy is correct in that the hard drive is not being recognized. If this is the case, then sometimes you can manually enter the parameters for the hard drive and get it to work. I have an old DELL that kept "losing" the hard drive and would not detect it automatically. I finally figured out that the CMOS battery was weak.


At any rate we need to be sure the hard drive is being recognized in the BIOS.

Just a thought.

Kilowatt


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## ~Candy~ (Jan 27, 2001)

Thanks KW, that crossed my mind, but without the boot disk, it should be looking at the hard drive, no?

Long weekend, I think my brain is fried


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## kilowatt1 (Oct 27, 2001)

> _Originally posted by misty black:_
> *I have not chosen to start with the cdrom support.
> the c drive is acknowledged in the bios. But d drive is not d is cdrom drive. in the bios what should be the ordewr of booting
> 1. hard drive 2. floppy or just reverse?
> ...


Hello Candy,

I'm thinking that it is looking past the hard drive (not recognizing it) and finding the first fixed disk which is the CDRom drive. Of course I could be wrong, as I usually am  , but you know me.........I'm a glutten for punishment.


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## ~Candy~ (Jan 27, 2001)

Guess we can't blame you looking at your computer specs 


 You forgot to list the 5 1/4 floppy


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## kilowatt1 (Oct 27, 2001)

> _Originally posted by AcaCandy:_
> *Guess we can't blame you looking at your computer specs
> 
> You forgot to list the 5 1/4 floppy  *


 Well, I didn't want to brag, seeing that I have both a 3 1/2 and a 5 1/4 floppy.


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## ~Candy~ (Jan 27, 2001)

Combo unit?


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## kilowatt1 (Oct 27, 2001)

Absolutely, although it does take a little practice to fold the 5 1/4 disk so that it will fit into the 3 1/2 drive!!  Not only that, but every time I put one of those new fangled round disks in the 5 1/4 drive it makes a weird grinding noise and won't read it or when you push down the handle to turn it on it breaks the dadgum disk!


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## ~Candy~ (Jan 27, 2001)

misty, hope we haven't chased you off with our antics


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## misty black (Feb 9, 2004)

acacandy and killowatt1 you folks are great I cannot thank you enough for all of your responses to my problem!!!!!!!
You asked what type of dcd i have restore or an actual copy.
I do not have cd's I have a set of floppy's to install win95


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## ~Candy~ (Jan 27, 2001)

Oh, that sounds like a truckload of fun, what was that, 25 disks  I think you should make KW an offer on his rig 

Did you check the information that KW mentioned a few posts back? Before we have you finish the FDISK, we want to be sure it's the hard drive that is giving us the so-called 'bad news.'


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## misty black (Feb 9, 2004)

hi again,
are you referring to the information in the bios (page 3)that kw asked about?


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## misty black (Feb 9, 2004)

I also down loaded a new boot disk from bootdisk.com booted up, typed in sys c: and received the following message: "Invalid drive specification"


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## ~Candy~ (Jan 27, 2001)

Yes, does the hard drive appear in the bios setup? If it doesn't, you will always get 'invalid drive specification.'


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## misty black (Feb 9, 2004)

i'm out to the office. will return about 4:30 EST. will checkout the info then and get back to you


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## john1 (Nov 25, 2000)

Maybe a quick check through those floppies,
just to see they all actually read ok would be first ?


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## misty black (Feb 9, 2004)

Following is information from bios:
Hard disk type-auto configured
number of cylinders-1654
number of heads-16
number of sectors-63
maximum capacity-814mb
ide translation mode-auto detected
multiple sector setting- auto configured
fast programmed I/O- modes auto detected


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## ~Candy~ (Jan 27, 2001)

Ok, save changes coming out of the bios setup.


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## misty black (Feb 9, 2004)

I did


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## ~Candy~ (Jan 27, 2001)

Now see if you can't do a sys c: with a boot disk.

DO NOT choose w/cdrom support.


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## misty black (Feb 9, 2004)

acacandy, i have no way to choose w/cdrom support. i tried sys c:
and got a bad command or file name


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## misty black (Feb 9, 2004)

could it be possible that the boot disk is for a cd rom?


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## ~Candy~ (Jan 27, 2001)

You are booting with a boot disk that you downloaded earlier, I guess I'm assuming you did, sometimes I confuse threads. You should have an option to boot with or without cdrom support from a GOOD boot disk.

http://freepctech.com/pc/002/files010.shtml


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## misty black (Feb 9, 2004)

You are right about the boot disk for cdrom as the boot disk loads it refers to cdrom. The problem is that it does not give me any choice. I went to the web page you recommended and i cannot define which disk i may need. I fear that they are all for cdrom
Don


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## john1 (Nov 25, 2000)

maybe copy the floppies to HD ?
run it from there ?


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## ~Candy~ (Jan 27, 2001)

All the boot disks on that download page should give you a menu to start with cdrom support or not. Download the Windows 98 bot disk, just for fun, as I'm most familiar with it. Save it to desktop, NOT to floppy, then double click on it, and follow instructions to create boot disk. Now boot the problem computer with that one and let's see what you get. We don't want to do sys c: with this disk though, we just want to see if you can get to a c: prompt at all.


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## misty black (Feb 9, 2004)

Hi acacandy,
I did the win98 boot disk thing booted the computer ended up getting sooooo much information from the boot disk that I did'nt know what to do with.
Can you in layman terms maybe slowly guide me thru this thing.

Thanks
Don


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## ~Candy~ (Jan 27, 2001)

Those are all drivers for various cds. Restart again, do you get the option to select with or without cdrom support? First choose with, and watch the info scroll by, you should see something similar to cdrom drive found, driver loaded, or an error message saying no cdrom found.

At the a: prompt, see if you can change to c:


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## misty black (Feb 9, 2004)

acacandy,
I do not get an option to select. I can change from a: to c:


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## ~Candy~ (Jan 27, 2001)

Well, I don't get that at all, obviously the floppy disk is taking over during the startup right?


At c:

if you type

dir
and press enter
what do you get?


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## misty black (Feb 9, 2004)

ACACANDY,
Well i finally got time to work on this old computer again.
I formatted the hard drive and installed win98 from cd. all appears to be ok except for one item. When i start windows i get a error message that says "3 com etherlink lll isa in isa mode is not working set it up again. I don't know what this is. I am not on a network system just a stand alone computer.
Again thanks you people are amazing with your intelligence


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## ~Candy~ (Jan 27, 2001)

Then pull out the 3 com adapter  Turn machine off first, unscrew the screw holding it in, and gently wiggle it out.

And you said 98, not 95


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## misty black (Feb 9, 2004)

Yes 98 I could not get a clean installation of 95 from floppy's
I tried but there were files missing so i had 98 on cd and it worked.


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## ~Candy~ (Jan 27, 2001)

Ok, fair enough. Let us know when you rip the ethernet adapter out


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## misty black (Feb 9, 2004)

Should i also remover the driver from control panel?


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## ~Candy~ (Jan 27, 2001)

Sure go ahead..........


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## misty black (Feb 9, 2004)

Hi, again
I removed the device and removed the driver. doubled the memory and for now all seems to be working great


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## ~Candy~ (Jan 27, 2001)

Great! Will mark this solved, any future problems, just start another thread


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## misty black (Feb 9, 2004)

I truly appreciate all of the help that you and others contributed.
Thanks a million


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## ~Candy~ (Jan 27, 2001)

Thank you and you're welcome, we try


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## john1 (Nov 25, 2000)

glad it's ok now, John


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