joe in wilkinson
Member
I tried to post this earlier, but it didn't appear for some reason. I screwed up and ran "format c:" command on an old Gateway 700 computer (vintage 1999). I need it to update some maps that I made in AutoCad14 with WIN98. I have tried many things, too numerous to mention. Short question: How can I make this Master Hard Drive appear like a "new one" that has some resident information (sys files), like a CD driver for a Hitatchi GD-5000-sm. Someone said it is resident on the WIN installation Disks, but I can not run the CD drive to get them. Right now the only entrance into the PC is via a 3.5 floppy drive, so the WIN98 or WINXP installation disks will not work. The BIOS shows the Master Drive, a Slave Drive, the Hitatchi CD units are present and in the proper boot order. When I boot up with no floppy or CD present, it comes to C: prompt. I can then go to D: and A: and see files. The only file showing on C: is Command Com. I can do nothing at C: but look. One suggestion was to open the config.sys file and autoexec.bat but they only appear on a WIN98 Start Up floppy that I made a long time ago when I bought the PC. I can't read or edit them, maybe because the edit & read commands are not resident anywhere on the floppy or the C: hard drive. Do I need a real PC doctor to fix it? Seems like there ought to be a repair floppy that resets a few things, but I have not been successful in finding one. I could move files into C: via the A: floppy if they didn't exceed 1.44MB. One last comment: The light flashes on the Hitachi when I insert a CD and also momentarily during boot up, but I don't know if this means it is totally functional. Could be that it is broken or the motherboard is not doing its job. All of the easy jobs are gone. Any help appreciated. Joe