Format Mistake

Compaq Deskpro 5120 Pentium 200Mhz 32MB's Ram 1.2HD ISA Sound Card for CD-ROM Hookup.
I'm helping my church out with upgrading thier school computers we have 6 of these same type systems & there have been a few people messing with them I've got 3 in great working order & one I believe is toast But my reason for asking for help is that 2 of these computers the HD's are formated without a way to get C:> they say invalid directory.So what can I do to try & load some sort of OS in them
Thanks for any help

 

Make a bootup floppy off of the other computers, hopefully they are 98. Put it into one of the other two. As it boots up choose the option with CD ROM support, then type this at the prompt:
format c: /u
This will wipe the disk. Put in the windows CD and type in E:\setup.
If you need a bootup floppy, go to http://www.bootdisk.com .

 

I wouldn't be so lucky,the other systems are Win95b so I'm kinda at a lose for fresh Idea's,I hope someone comes up with another plan for me

 

Then download here

http://www.putergeek.com/downloads/#win95b_boot

 

If you cannot get the C:> prompt it is likely the HDD has no valid partition on it => you need to run FDISK to make one. You won't be able to format C: because C: doesn't exist yet...
FDISK is very dangerous (!) but from what you say you don't have anything to lose...
FDISK will be on any Microsoft startup disk, even old DOS ones. If you can use a startup disk to get as far as the A:> prompt:

A:>FDISK <return> will present you with some options, choose "Display Partition Information" and you'll probably see there is no active one (would have an "A" under "Status ") so:
go back to the fdisk options, choose "Create DOS Partition "; setting it to the whole drive is easiest...
then, make the partition active, using "Set Active Partition" (you have to do this to make drive C: bootable)
upon exit from fdisk, typing C: <return> should yield the C:> prompt.
Now you can format the disk, transfer the system files etc...
Some PC's have BIOS which can't handle large drives by itself, a variety of dodges are employed to get round this - if this is the case the procedure will be a bit different, it varies depending upon the HDD manufacturer; if you post to let me know what you get I'll try & get back to you... if you try to start the machine *without* a floppy and get presented with something like "press space to boot from diskette ", or some other sort of choice like this, you have to let it get through this bit *before* using the startup floppy.
Hope this of some use, Hugh

A Crash A Day Keeps Sanity At Bay...
What is an Occasional Table, the rest of the time??

 

Good guidance except turn off your machine after FDISK and before formatting ..... not to worry, you'll be prompted to do this anyway.