Full Restore, operating system not found

I bought a compaq presario 1675 at a garage sale the other day.
Everything was working fine until I thought, "Wouldn't it be nice to
restore the computer to its original factory condition?" I went to the
quick restore program and pressed "Full Restore ". When I started it up
I got, "operating system not found ". I don't have any of the restore
disks. Can anyone help me get my bargin computer working again?
Thanks

Tom Wall,
Tucson, AZ

 

Hi Tom:

Are you sure your laptop had Windows "95" on it before your pressed the "Full Restore" button?

Jerry

 

Hi Jerry,
Thanks for responding. I'm pretty sure it was 95. I do know, for sure, that it had an operating system, because it was working, up until I decided to bring the computer back to it's origional condition by doing a "full restore ". By the way, I think the "full restore" is a Compaq thing, but I don't remember much about 95's. Perhaps that's why I can't find much on the web about it.

I've been very careful to not add anything to the HD because I'm afraid of overwriting files. Isn't there some type of disk bootable program that can access undelete functions from just the disk? I've tried a boot disk from Compaq and could not even get to a prompt.

Thanks again. I feel so stupid.

Tom


http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsuppor...assId=-1&prodTypeId=321957&prodSeriesId=96345

 

Hi Tom:

I guess I'm not going to be much help. My Win95-B has nothing like a "Restore Button." Somewhere in the back of my mind "System Restore" made it's appearance in Win98. I'm not ruling out that Compaq had something special for its computers. I DO know that Compaq used to put the SETUP PROGRAM for its BIOS in a little "secret" partition on a hard drive, and when people installed a new hard drive (or "wiped" an old one completely clean), the computer no longer would boot, and you couldn't even get in to make changes in the BIOS.

I understand some modern computers come with all the Windows Installation files in a hidden hard drive partition, so that a computer can be restored to the condition it was in when built, without using CDROM disks to reinstall the operating system.

I don't think any of these "restore" functions are part of Windows "95." Anybody else who has more info about a Win95 "restore" feature is welcome to post it here. I'll be watching, and I'm always happy to learn something new. Win95 is my favorite OS.

Jerry

 

When you tryed the restore, did it say it was formatting ? IF yes you will have to buy a OS disk. Otherwise it will depend on just what restore did do.

If your laptop has a floppy drive, use a Win98 boot floppy (www.bootdisk.com , if downloaded from this site what you download is a program to make boot floppy, do not copy downloaded program to floppy) . When booted to the prompt A:
1)type in Fdisk and select option #4, post what is displayed.
2)If you do a DIR C:\ what happens ?

We will have to determine just what OS and version is installed if a format was not done.

 

TopFarmer,
Thank you for your advice. I've downloaded the 98 boot disk and have expanded it to a floppy. I'll try it on Friday and let you know how things go.

Thanks,
Tom

 

TopFarmer,

"If your laptop has a floppy drive, use a Win98 boot floppy (www.bootdisk.com , if downloaded from this site what you download is a program to make boot floppy, do not copy downloaded program to floppy) . When booted to the prompt A:
1)type in Fdisk and select option #4, post what is displayed.
2)If you do a DIR C:\ what happens ?

We will have to determine just what OS and version is installed if a format was not done. "

===========
First
Well, I tried to get the the bootdisks from "bootdisk.com" to work, but they didn't. So, I make a bootdisk from another '98 computer I have, and I DID get to the a prompt. I then typed in this, "A:\Fdisk" and "A:Fdisk ", and got this,

"Data error reading drive A
Abort, Retry, Ignore, Fail "

=========
Next:
"2)If you do a DIR C:\ what happens ? "

I get an accurate directory of C. Everything is dated to 2-26-99, EXCEPT,
"MFG00 BAT 1-23-06 9:43p ". That is the time and date I "killed" the Compaq.

========
Next:
"We will have to determine just what OS and version is installed if a format was not done. "

On my other garage sale laptop, I seem to have a complete '98 OS sitting in a folder. It DOES have a lisence number, so I assume it's legal. Could I use this to reinstall '98.

========
Thanks again. As soon as I can get this computer up and running, I'm taking it in to my 3rd grade classroom to use it as a mobile writing station.

Thanks,
Tom

 

[I seem to have a complete '98 OS sitting in a folder] if it will work for a over the top reinstall will depend if they are the save version for 98 (FE/SE]. If the bad comp has SE and the other is FE , you would have to do a clean install.

Would still like you to run FDISK. It would appear that the boot floppy may have a bad sector on it, make a different one and try. The command at the promt A:> would be just FDISK. Other wise as long as it will boot to the floppy you can try at promt A:> C:\windows\command\fdisk.

I am thinking when you tryed to restore the comp it removed the Active flag from the MBR on the Windows partition. Fdisk will tell us.