Computer won't work
 

It wouldn't boot and I tried it on another forum but we could only get that far. Please help! (It was another computer.)

http://boards.gameshark.com/message.asp?topic=12099783&replies=12

Are you booting from a floppy disk ?

Try doing a directory of the different drives.

Dir A:
Dir B: can skip this one unless it is your LS-120 or have 2 floppy drives
Dir C:
Dir D:
Dir E:
Dir F:

Which ones work ( show a directory ) ?
In particular does the dir command
work on the hard disk ( usually drive C: ) ?

What version of windows is on the PC ?

If it is 95, 98, 98SE or maybe ME then I have some ideas to try.
If it is 2000 or XP then I don't, ignore the rest of post.

I've had the boot failure with the 9X versions, so I can help if it one of those versions.

It is most likely the boot sector or FAT sectors are damaged and that is why it isn't booting.
Another possibility is a virus wiped out at boot sector at the minimum or possibly more.

If you can get to a dos prompt, do

DIR C:\

then

DIR C:\WINDOWS

( windows is usually the directory, it could be something else though )
( if it isn't WINDOWS then substitute it when WINDOWS is shown )

if it shows directories & files then you can rescue files from the hard disk

type

SET ( then press enter )

it will tell the about the path for the COMSPEC environment variable

if it just shows COMSPEC=

type

SET COMSPEC=A:\

it also tells about the PATH variable

if it is PATH=

if doing a directory of the windows directory works

DIR C:\WINDOWS


type

SET PATH=A:\;C:\WINDOWS

otherwise

SET PATH=A:\

If you booted with a floppy with the SAME version of windows as on the hardisk you could go to the windows directory

C:
CD \WINDOWS


and type

WIN /D:M

(starts windows in safe-mode)

I have Windows 95, and it wants me to boot up from a Floppy Disk only. But I noticed that it says non-system disk when I put in a floppy disk.

You need a bootable floppy ( bootable to Win 95 DOS ).
From a PC with Win 95 get to a DOS screen, put in a floppy
and type

format A: /S

this will make a Bootable floppy for Win95
the /S puts some operating system files on the floppy.

There is also a format routine from MyComputer

Put the floppy in the drive
Go into MyComputer
Click on the A drive

Click File Format
check both Full and Copy System Files

It will result in a Bootable floppy for Win95

How do I use the floppy disk once I've created it?

Put it in the disk drive and restart the computer. That's all.

When the floppy is bootable, you won't get the "non-system disk" message.

I noticed it was a system disk. But how do I restart? When I turn it on it just fails to boot and gets to business, so is that even necessary?

With the computer turned off, put the bootable floppy in.

As long as you have the floppy drive as one of your boot drives
in the bios, when you turn on the computer it will try the
different boot drives and find you have a bootable floppy disk
in the floppy drive and boot up from it.

It will start a Windows 95 command prompt ( DOS mode prompt ).

From there the items I described before can be tried.

There are only 4 possible commands since there are 4 files and only command.com works but that's what I'm already in.

Command.com actually contains a number of dos commands in itself

DIR
REN RENAME ( the first is an short alias )
DEL ERASE
TYPE
COPY
PAUSE
DATE
TIME
VER
VOL
CD CHDIR
MD MKDIR
RD RMDIR
ECHO

So though you only see four files (at least one of which is a program)
there are quite a few commands available.

The rest of the dos commands are separate programs.

FORMAT.COM
FIND.EXE
SCANDISK.EXE

and others.

If you need them they need to be copied onto the floppy.