# Dos Commands



## blkittygirl (Sep 11, 2004)

I have an old computer. A Compaq Pressario 7469. During the Bios I noticed that the version seems to be old. It says:
AIC-6260/6360/6370 ASPI Manager For DOS Version 3.68S
Copyright 1990-1997 Adaptec Inc.

Then it says:

AIC-78XX/ AIC-75XX ASPI Manager For DOS Version 1.32S
Copyright 1994-1997 Adaptec Inc.

I am not proficient in dos and need some place to find commands and examples of how to use them, what they do etc. Can anyone help me?
B


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## 3fs (Jul 12, 2005)

is it actually booting to a dos prompt? If so, what version (try typing ver at a the prompt)


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## blkittygirl (Sep 11, 2004)

Nope. It gives me a message saying the version of the Windows Me floppy that I had in the drive.


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## Dan O (Feb 13, 1999)

Here's a link for a MS DOS reference guide: http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/ntcmds.mspx?mfr=true

What exactly are you trying to accomplish with the PC?


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## HandleX (Mar 18, 2006)

bump...


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

Both of the above referenced drivers are for SCSI drives. I suspect you're seeing them being reported from the CONFIG.SYS file.

It would help a bunch if you told us what kind of hardware this is, does it have any expansion boards, perhaps with a cable wider than a standard IDE disk cable?


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## Dan Penny (Mar 25, 2005)

"It would help a bunch if you told us what kind of hardware this is..."

"I have an old computer. A Compaq Pressario 7469."

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...docname=c00012494&lc=en&jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN

"... need some place to find commands and examples of how to use them, what they do etc."

http://www.easydos.com/dosindex.html

and

http://www.mdgx.com/secrets.htm

and

http://www.eiu.edu/~philos/retro/dos/

"... saying the version of the Windows Me floppy that I had in the drive."

Does this machine still have 98SE (factory installed) as the O/S, or have you "upgraded/changed" to ME?

Those ASPI messages are probably just the result of booting with a boot floppy.


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## blkittygirl (Sep 11, 2004)

This machine belongs to my daughter. Someone, has tried to fix it, (apparently it was only saying NTLDR is missing.....)and by the time she brought it over to me, it had no OS at all and I can't seem to get it to recognize the drive with the 12 free gigs on it. What a nightmare. I have been hunting down the ex boyfriend who has possession of the Windows XP disk that was on it when it went down. I hope to have it in my possession shortly. So, no it doesn't have Windows 98SE on it now. It has nothing on it, but a big mess, and I'm no bloody expert at this type of thing. I am trying to fix it and learn some tech facts as I go. Probably not the best idea, but, she's in no hurry to get it back and I'm wanting to learn as much as I can so it's a good compromise.
B


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## Dan Penny (Mar 25, 2005)

That machine originally had 98SE on it. (From the factory.)

Do you have a 98SE O/S CD (Operating System) to load? Or did you want to load something else?

XP is (normally) licensed for one machine only. If the CD you're obtaining from the ex boyfriend has been loaded and activated on another machine, you won't get very far. You'll have 30 days to activate and if the activation fails because of the afore mentioned reason, it won't run in anything but safe mode, which is very restrictive.


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## blkittygirl (Sep 11, 2004)

No no. The machine came with 98Se but they bought xp and loaded it a couple of years ago. They split and the cd was in his stuff. He meant to leave it with the puter but in all the hassle it got overlooked. I've found him after all this time and he's still living in the city so he said he'd get it over to me sometime this week. It was new loaded only on this machine. 
B


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## Dan Penny (Mar 25, 2005)

Then you should be fine. If the XP O/S is still on the drive, when you boot with the XP CD it should find it and give you options as to whether you want to try a repair, or load fresh.

You should seek answers on what to do for these upcoming choices in the XP forum. I'm not that proficient in XP yet, but I do know that choosing the "Repair Console??" or "Command Console??" can be a bad choice. Refer to this post (in your topic over there) for possible relevant back ground to whoever reads the new post. When you get the CD you'll be ready.

If you have to load fresh, you will need to activate XP once again. Check out the activation which applies at Microsoft:

http://support.microsoft.com/search/default.aspx?spid=1173&query=activate&catalog=LCID%3D1033&pwt=false&title=false&kt=ALL&mdt=0&comm=1&ast=1&ast=2&ast=3&mode=a


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## blkittygirl (Sep 11, 2004)

I used BootIt NG and the windows xp no longer is on the puter. I am assuming but I could be wrong, the person who was on the computer and thought they could "fix" it, screwed around where they didn't know for sure what they were doing, and perhaps hadn't heard of asking for help....from you guys perhaps....It now has 10+ gigs of free space. There is one partition with Fat16..2 gigs...

When he brings the disk, what exactly do I do with it. Just use the floppy to get the cd-rom recognized and operating then use the cd?
B


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## Dan Penny (Mar 25, 2005)

You can use a FAT32 boot floppy* to see what is on the 2GB FAT16 partition. Once you boot with the XP CD I don't believe it gives you the option to look at a partition before either overwriting it or removing it.

Don't use a boot floppy to start the XP install. It should boot directly from the CD. If any hard disk partitions contain boot files, you will either need to format the partition, remove the partition with fdisk, or possibly set your boot device sequence in the machines bios. Compaq bios access is F10 I believe.

* http://www.cyberus.ca/~danpenny/WIN98SE.EXE

The above bootdisk image file is a self extracting file and has to be executed (run) from a running Windows machine in order to create the actual startup diskette. (This image file produces the same bootdisk which 98SE creates.) This downloaded image file will format the floppy disk, write the files to the disk, then verify the file write, so it'll take a minute or three to create the bootdisk.

Ensure the floppy drive is set as the first boot device in the bios. http://www.d-a-l.com/articles/library/23.html

When you boot a machine with this boot floppy, it creates a RAMDRIVE in system memory to contain DOS system tools. Thus it will move your "normal" CDROM device/drive letter "up" one level. (If your CDROM is normally E:, it will be F: when booting with this bootdisk.)

The path to the found CDROM will be set with the bootfiles however, so entering A:\>f:\setup is the same as entering A:\>setup at the A:\> prompt. There is no need to include the cdrom drive letter. The CDROM device letter will be assigned near the end of the floppy boot process, right after MSCDEX is loaded.


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## blkittygirl (Sep 11, 2004)

Thanks alot Dan. I'll try it when he brings the cd over. I'll let you know if I got it okay. Thank you again.
B


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## Dan Penny (Mar 25, 2005)

You're welcome.


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