Computer assistance please!!!

[plifter]

I reformatted the hard drive on my spare computer. There were some files that I wanted to delete and make sure they stayed deleted. How do I get this thing running again? I have the recovery disc that is supposed to restore it to the factory settings and I have a companion disk that says it has the Win 98 installation files. I have a boot disk that gives me a DOS prompt but I don't know how to install the CDs from there. Any help would be appreciated!!

 

[Latimer]

Is your computer an HP?

Try throwing the recovery cd in and see if it boots up from the cd-rom. If not you can change the bios settings so that it will be bootable from the cd-rom drive.

Let me know if that works. If not there are other ways.

Just because you formatted it doesn't mean that the files you wanted to stay deleted aren't still recoverable.

 

[plifter]

It won't boot up straight from the recovery disk. How do I change the BIOS settings? The PC is an NEC BTW.

I know the deleted files can still be recovered but I'm guessing it would be a pretty complicated task to do it.

 

[Latimer]

Is it a windows 98 boot disk you have and is the recovery disk a floppy disk or a cd?

 

[danielson]

as far as i can remember

stick in yer disk, rstart the pc. then it will ask u to choose an option, choose the CD support option, or whatever, remeber whats its designated ur CD rom. then access that drive

i.e.
e: [enter]

then type setup [enter]


i think

 

[elijah]

Gotcha

Hey if you have really sensitive files you need to get rid of lemme know there are a couple ways to at least make the recovery alot harder for whoever is doing it than just the normal reformat. On to the problem

The dos prompt is your friend Witht he cd in, boot to the disk and at the dos prompt type
cd d:

then

setup

Wala it should start, if not after typing d:
type dir
and look for a install, setup, something along those lines. If that doesn't work let us know

 

[AAP]

OOOOppppssss... Always make sure you BIOS is set to boot from the CD BEFORE you refomat.

You can use the DOS prompt to manual point the environment to the CD and then exe a RUN on the install file.

 

[slickdadd]

it doesnt matter, bios is always there. Just hit f2 when you turn on your computer or whatever entry it requests to enter setup and do it from there. Or at the dos prompt just switch to the cd drive and run it manually. Or use the floppy boot disk in conjuntion with the cd, many options