Need Help! Lost CD-ROM Drive After Reformatting Hard Drive

dihen

So, I'm just at the beginning of studying for the A+ OS, and got out my old computer to begin playing with the different Operating Systems. It had Windows 95 loaded, and it was working fine until I got the bright idea after reading my Sybex book to go ahead and reformat the hard drive so that I could practice installing Windows 95, and after I was done studying it, I would load Windows 98.

Well, I reformatted the hard drive, stuck in the setup diskette I had originally made when I first got the computer, and restarted the computer. I got the message Loading Windows and then the A: prompt came up. Well, it was then that I realized that I had to reinstall Windows 95 from a CD. I tried to activate the Mscdex.exe from the floppy disk to read the CD-ROM, but all I got is "Invalid Drive Specification", and nothing I did let me read the CD-ROM.

Then I got the another bright idea to load Windows 3.1 since I could access the A Drive, and then I thought that maybe I could work my way around loading Windows 95. Got all sorts of messages during that install and cannot get into Windows that way either. And still couldn't access the CD-ROM.

I think I've totally screwed everything up. Can't find anything listed under the C: root directory, but have a C:\Windows directory, and a C:\Windows\System directory.

I can get to Setup by pressing DEL at startup. I see the floppy drive and hard drive listed but nothing for the CD-ROM. Should I see the CD-ROM listed?

Sorry for the long post - I am so frustrated with myself 'cause now I don't have my old computer to work on

janmike

Windows95 startup disk doesn't support CDROM drive.

You need a Windows98 startup disk. That will take care of you on both 95 & 98.

You can add a CDROM driver to the W95 disk called OAKCDROM.SYS. You can find it a a lot of different web sites for free download. It will drive most CDROMS. You may need to edit the config.sys and autoexec.bat files
in order to get the PC to recognize the drive. You can find that on the web.

I can't find my instructions for that right now.

Good luck!

dihen

Thank you for the reply. Right before you answered, I had finally found a solution. And you were 100% right in the direction I would have to take!!

During my searches, I learned that Windows95 startup disks did NOT offer CD-ROM support. (what a way to learn a valuable lesson! !)

And you are right, I had to find a bootable startup disk, which would offer CD-ROM support and I found one here: http://oldstuff.myagora.net/powerload/bootdisk.htm (in case anyone needs one, they have bootable disks for just about any O/S).

As I write this, Windows 95 is up and running again.

Thank you - appreciate the input!

janmike

Well, I think that's pretty much how I learned it too!

Was just starting to give another reply. Found some instructions. Glad you found your way! An excellent way to learn--won't forget it.

Best of luck in the future.

dihen

Thank you!