# Help, PLEASE, I used FORMAT C, now stuck!!!



## Busy Mom (Jul 31, 2000)

I am completely clueless!! We had a computer given to us for our daughter to play her preschool games on; the computer had a virus (we think) that we just could not seem to get rid of, :mad the original recovery disk from Packard Bell did not work, we figured this was part of the virus. (The machine is a '95 Packard Bell, 75mhz pentium) We did not need anything that was stored on the machine so figured it would be best to start with a clean slate.
We did the Format C command from DOS and now we cannot do anything!!
The recovery disk does not work, we also have an old 486 that I tried the recovery disk from (also a Packard Bell)just in case, that does not work either, but I get further with that one than the one that came with the computer. I also have tried just turning the machine on without a disk in, and it tells me I have a non system disk inserted. I downloaded a boot disk from bootdisk.com, but can't seem to make it work. I am technically impaired :confused - I can use just about any type of software, but I need specific instructions to do this! I can't seem to find info on using the correct commands to solve my problem, everything I read seems very vague to me. Can anyone help? I would greatly appreciate it!!








Thanks!!


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## inyomomzmouth (Aug 1, 2000)

your ****ed.


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## MsPCGenius (Apr 24, 2000)

Can you use a DOS boot disk and FORMAT C: /S? This would place the system files on the C: drive and allow you to, at least, access it. You would then have to reinstall Windows.


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## TechGuy (Feb 12, 1999)

The account of "inyomomzmouth" (above) has been disabled under the Category III: Crude or Rude Language rule. For more information about this site's rules, please see http://www.helponthe.net/tsgbb/rules.html or feel free to contact me at [email protected]


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## Reuel Miller (Feb 17, 1999)

Greetings

It is likely that the old machine can not boot off the CD-ROM. What you will need, is a boot disk, that has CD-ROm drivers on it.

You can boot off this disk, and then go to the recovery CD and run the setup program.

To get a good Boot disk, you can go to www.xperts.co.za/reuel/multiboot

This is my web site. There are two available boot disks you can download, my own one (in red) and the standard Win98 boot disk (in blue). You can download either.

The way the downloaded files work is like this: Save the .EXE file to your desktop. When the file has downloaded completely, put a diskette in your A: drive and double click on the file. The program will then format your floppy diskette (so any info on it at the moment will be lost) and write onto it the boot disk that you have downloaded. It will also make the boot disk bootable.

You may need to download the Win98 boot disk if you have formatted the Hard Drive with FAT32. If you look at my site, you will find instructions on how to use my own boot disk to reformat your HD (using Partition Magic). That way, you will know how it has been formated.

Once you have booted off the disk, you must navigate to the setup program and run it.

Unfortunately, I do not know the specifics on how to do that in your case, as recovery disks might be different to normal CDs. What I suggest you do, is call up Packard Bells tech support (I have no idea how good/bad they are, so I do not know how good this piece of advice is... if they are really bad, it might be time to ask a computer literate friend to come for a free meal and an evening of installing the PC) and have them walk you through it.

Hope this helps

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*Reuel Miller* 
Windows NT Moderator (yes, that does make me biased  )

[email protected]

Website: www.xperts.co.za/reuel/multiboot

_Every morning is the dawn of a new error..._


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