Re:

[scuzzy]

Your Compaq computer probably has an older BIOS that does not recognize the CD-ROM unless the driver (usually MSCDEX.EXE) is loaded on the hard drive, and the command is loaded into the CONFIG.SYS. Unless you're knowledgeable in DOS, this will take quite a bit of hand-holding.



You mentioned that you can't format the hard drive. What have you tried to do to get it formatted? Do you have a boot floppy with the format command? If you can't access the CD-ROM, you'll definitely need a boot floppy that also has FORMAT, MSCDEX, and a few other commands on it.



http://www.poasters.com/images/scuzzy.gif" border=0>

Alex Garcia

[Chandler]

Many versions of the Windows CD-ROM are bootable themselves.  You just pop the disk in, then set the computer to boot from the CD-ROM first in the BIOS setup.



The problem with making a boot disk yourself is that you need to know which DOS drivers your device can use.  I once made one that was ATAPI compatible, yet I encountered a Hitachi ATAPI drive that refused to work with it.



There are instructions here: http://www.hildrum.com/boot_disk.html



As for formatting, you might need to set a partition as active before you can format it.



Chandler Bing

[computercare]

I am trying to load WIN 95 onto a Compaq Presario 866. I have fdisked the hard drive and I am having trouble getting it to format also. I am booting the computer with a WIN 98 boot disk and it won't read the CD ROM. Any help will be great...



computercare