Way O.T. Computer prob

thanks!

You are going about this wrong; you don't want that command.com file from your A drive over on the C drive. It's the wrong file.

At the A: prompt, type in:

C:\dir

This should throw everything that is seen on drive C. If it does, then Windows needs to be reinstalled.

If it does not, it does not mean that the drive is dead; it only means that the computer cannot see drive C.

Hard drives just don't "die" that easily, but they do tend to become corrupted, loose a partition, come unplugged, or perhaps it could not read from the "0" sector. Could be a lot of things, but a competent repairman can usually save that drive.

But, the first thing to do is to see if your computer can actually see a "drive C".

Allan

Can you do c: RETURN and get a c: prompt - are you booted so you can access the hard drive at all? Can you get a directory of the C: drive (c: dir RETURN).

copy a:/command.com c:/

should do the copy, but only if you have the hard drive accessable.

--->Paul

If you don't have it, get some antivirus software. Likely your ISP will have free or cheap software that is kept up-to-date easily.

You will need to create a boot disk for XP, supporting NTFS file systems, and so on.

Most of the time that is difficult to do on a small floppy, you need to use the CD that came from the vendor & use that to boot up the computer & get things working properly.

Or, can you start up the computer in safe mode, & restore it to a previous time when it was still working? That would be the best first option on an XP system.

--->Paul

To attempt to repair the OS, get an XP install CD, boot the computer off the CD and pick the "repair" option when prompted. (This is how Windows 2000 works, I assume XP is the same.)

In answer to your question how to create a boot disk, in the old days you could do this with the "sys" command. Boot from another device, then type "sys c:" to transfer the system files to the hard drive. I have no idea if this still works in XP.