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Hi,

I have a 1997 compaq presario 4540, a few months ago I tried to do a full restore on the hardrive wth the system provided software. It didnt work. then a buddy of mine tried to upload windows 95, he failed. basically i was wondering if there is a way to erase a hard drive so that i could start fresh? i just want to use this computer for basic computing needs, nothing fancy.

PS i have ordered an updated quickrestore from compaq, however when i turn the computer on it comes up with non-system disk in drive, remove and hit any key, even when there is no disk in the drives. that is why i was thinking i need to just erase the hard drive.

thanks,
Corry

LAST EDITED ON Aug-07-01 AT 05:32 AM (GMT)

LAST EDITED ON Aug-07-01 AT 05:30 AM (GMT)

Corry
you and I seem to be suffering from the same problem. I have gone a little farther but as yet have had no luck. Did you try booting up the PC with a Win95 or Win 98 boot disc? If it recognizes the disc and loads up, you caould try running the 'fdisk' command at the DOS prompt. This will reformat (erase and 'reset') your hard drive and give you a clean slate to work with. If you still get the non-system disc error, welcome to the club. Keep an eye on my question (just below yours) on non-system disc error to see what kind of response I get, and I'll watch yours.
Duke
(qtrscalrac)

Non-System Disk or Disk Error results when the Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) cannot find the boot sector or the master boot record is missing or damaged; i.e. the device does not have bootable media. The BIOS searches drives in the order usually specified in the CMOS Setup. This order is often, but not always, A: (floppy drive), C: (first partition on the hard disk)… The error will occur during startup if the CMOS is set so the BIOS seeks the floppy drive first and a non-bootable (or blank) floppy is in (was left in) the floppy drive. Other causes include:
· No bootable partition on a hard disk drive
· A defective hard disk drive
· The CMOS drive settings (parameters) are not correct for the boot device
· Defective floppy
· Defective floppy drive
· A virus
Larry

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