I bought a compaq laptop at a yard sale (probably not a good idea). It turns on but someting about fix and repair comes on. It wont accept any discs at all. Says its not the right disc. The lady that sold it to me said that her son formated it by accident. There was no paper work or discs or anything like that with it. Can it be fixed? If so how? Or am i just out $20.00? I really dont want to put alot of money into it until i find out if it would be worth it. All i know about it is its a compaq and it had windows 95 on it. Any suggestions?
Help with Compaq laptop
Started by
kate1963
, Jul 08 2006 12:27 AM
#1
Posted 08 July 2006 - 12:27 AM
kate1963
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- Member
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- 15 posts
Member
I bought a compaq laptop at a yard sale (probably not a good idea). It turns on but someting about fix and repair comes on. It wont accept any discs at all. Says its not the right disc. The lady that sold it to me said that her son formated it by accident. There was no paper work or discs or anything like that with it. Can it be fixed? If so how? Or am i just out $20.00? I really dont want to put alot of money into it until i find out if it would be worth it. All i know about it is its a compaq and it had windows 95 on it. Any suggestions?
#2
Posted 08 July 2006 - 03:03 AM
SRX660
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- Technician
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- 4,345 posts
motto - Just get-er-done
Did the laptop come with a floppy drive? If so then use a win 98 boot floppy to see if you can access the "C" drive. Just type in c and hit the enter key. Then type in dir to see what you have on the hard drive. If theres nothing on the c drive dir will just show c with no files there. The win 98 boot floppy should also load cdrom drivers if you say yes to boot with cdrom support. You should be able to then put a win 98 cd in the cdrom drive and type in e:/setup and windows should start loading. If the laptop is setup so that you have to switch the floppy drive out with the cdrom drive there is still a way to do this.
Heres a website that explains how to put a boot floppy on a cdrom to boot off the cdrom drive.
http://mickwhitby.wo...and-windows-xp/
You will notice where it says that he typed in sys a: c:. This transfers the boot floppy files to the HD. I've done this on a old panasonic toughbook laptop to install 98.
You may have to go thru a fdisk and format on the hard drive before doing anything else. If you get a bad command or drive not found the HD is probably not formatted. You do this with the boot floppy or from the CD after making a CD that has the boot floppy files on it.
Don't give up and you may have a nice older laptop to mess around with.
SRX660
Heres a website that explains how to put a boot floppy on a cdrom to boot off the cdrom drive.
http://mickwhitby.wo...and-windows-xp/
You will notice where it says that he typed in sys a: c:. This transfers the boot floppy files to the HD. I've done this on a old panasonic toughbook laptop to install 98.
You may have to go thru a fdisk and format on the hard drive before doing anything else. If you get a bad command or drive not found the HD is probably not formatted. You do this with the boot floppy or from the CD after making a CD that has the boot floppy files on it.
Don't give up and you may have a nice older laptop to mess around with.
SRX660
#3
Posted 08 July 2006 - 05:43 PM
SRX660
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- Technician
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- 4,345 posts
motto - Just get-er-done
Kate 1963, i did get your message.
It would be better to ask questions in this thread instead of using messages. This way other people can read the answers and then may not have to start another thread on the same subject.
From the tone of your message i understand that you have no idea of how to install windows on the laptop. I would like you to try a procedure to see if it is possible to do this.
On older models of compaq laptops, to get to the BIOS you must keep tapping the F10 key( newer ones use F1) while the computer is booting up. Just turn it on and keep tapping. If you hit it right you should get a blue screen. This is the BIOS of the computer. While the computer is running open the cdrom drive so you can put a windows CD in the drive. In the BIOS you will be using the "ARROW" keys and the "ENTER" key to move around with. What you will be looking for is the BOOT ORDER. If you can find where is says boot order highlight it by using the up or down arrow key. Then hit the enter key. A new window shouild popup showing the boot order. Most likely it will say Hard drive, but it could say floppy drive or cdrom drive there. If it is HARD DRIVE you need to highlight it using the up or down arrow keys, then use the left or right arrow keys to try to change it. You need to set it to boot from the cdrom drive first. If you can find that and set it you will then use the escape key to get out of that window and hit the escape key again to get out of the bios. A popup will usually ask you if you want to save the changes you made. highlight "YES"( with the arrow keys again) and hit enter. The computer should try booting up again. close the cdrom drive ( with a windows CD in the drive) and turn the laptop off then restart it again. If it is possible with that laptop it should try booting off the cdrom drive. Then windows should start loading to the computer.
You say you don't have a windows 98 cdrom? You will need on so beg, borrow, or st-UH borrow one from wherever you can. You will need one to get this laptop going. Windows should see the hardware and probably ask you to format the hard drive if there is no format on it. Look formatting up on the internet to get the idea of what you are trying to do.
I just really want to see if the laptop will boot from the cdrom drive. If it cannot then you have a $20 door stop. I would not want to put any money into any laptop more than a couple of years old. I say that but i am still running a Toshiba Portage 660 pentium 150 laptop even today.
SRX660
It would be better to ask questions in this thread instead of using messages. This way other people can read the answers and then may not have to start another thread on the same subject.
From the tone of your message i understand that you have no idea of how to install windows on the laptop. I would like you to try a procedure to see if it is possible to do this.
On older models of compaq laptops, to get to the BIOS you must keep tapping the F10 key( newer ones use F1) while the computer is booting up. Just turn it on and keep tapping. If you hit it right you should get a blue screen. This is the BIOS of the computer. While the computer is running open the cdrom drive so you can put a windows CD in the drive. In the BIOS you will be using the "ARROW" keys and the "ENTER" key to move around with. What you will be looking for is the BOOT ORDER. If you can find where is says boot order highlight it by using the up or down arrow key. Then hit the enter key. A new window shouild popup showing the boot order. Most likely it will say Hard drive, but it could say floppy drive or cdrom drive there. If it is HARD DRIVE you need to highlight it using the up or down arrow keys, then use the left or right arrow keys to try to change it. You need to set it to boot from the cdrom drive first. If you can find that and set it you will then use the escape key to get out of that window and hit the escape key again to get out of the bios. A popup will usually ask you if you want to save the changes you made. highlight "YES"( with the arrow keys again) and hit enter. The computer should try booting up again. close the cdrom drive ( with a windows CD in the drive) and turn the laptop off then restart it again. If it is possible with that laptop it should try booting off the cdrom drive. Then windows should start loading to the computer.
You say you don't have a windows 98 cdrom? You will need on so beg, borrow, or st-UH borrow one from wherever you can. You will need one to get this laptop going. Windows should see the hardware and probably ask you to format the hard drive if there is no format on it. Look formatting up on the internet to get the idea of what you are trying to do.
I just really want to see if the laptop will boot from the cdrom drive. If it cannot then you have a $20 door stop. I would not want to put any money into any laptop more than a couple of years old. I say that but i am still running a Toshiba Portage 660 pentium 150 laptop even today.
SRX660
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