My computer is a large paper-weight. Can any1 help

Hello!

I am newbie and was wondering if anyone could help me out because i have managed to make my computer stop doing a few things it used to do quite well, ie work.

I apologise if i dont make things clear as they should be...

''i wanted to clear my old computer of everything on it because it was running slow and i was thinking of not keeping it and giving it to someone (since then i have changed my mind and would now like to keep it). Its an old TIME computer running windows 98, I inserted the ''original recovery diskette'' hoping to restore its original factory settings - which i have sucessfully done before - but i reckon i went through the options in the wrong order or something and now cannot access windows at all, as all i see is the start up screen and the DOS thing..''

Do i have to type in something or reinstall something?, also the cd drive light no longer wants to turn itself on so i presume i can only insert floppy discs. But i think i have relevant discs if i knew how to make my computer read them.

... so what im wondering is what have I done and how can i make it work?

Anyhelp will be greatly appreciated and recieve my goodwill!

Have you tried your CD drive to see if it works? It could be just the light. If you have your old win98 cd or any newer version of Windows, just put it in and see if you can boot to it. Also make sure you have the boot settings in the bios fixed so that you can boot to it when you restart your computer.

Hey, thanks for the reading the post and the quick reply. I would assumethe cd drive is working because it was fine before and it lights up when i initially turn on my computer. So thats okay i reckon. I read somewhere that i might need to go to this ''BIOS'' place and tell my computer to read my cd drive if it needs to, if it does... i dont know. I dont think i have a windows disc, if i could locate it would that be of any use? i have a microsoft works cd buts thats different.. i assume.

How do i check/enter BIOS?

To get into BIOS on most computers is, as you are booting press the "Delete" key. But it depends on what kind of motherboard you may have.

The Windows disc is totally different than MS works, but if you can find a Windows disc laying around try using it to boot your computer to Windows installation.

wow, (thanks to you) i have discoved the world of BIOS. this place looks interesting. So from what i said it seems like i need to locate my windows disc and things will work again.

I like the way you wrote ''if you can find a windows disc lying about'' because it pretty much somes up my computer area.

No problem. Happy to help.

i might be able to locate an XP disc in my house somewhere, would that be of any use? And if i placed inside how do i make my computer read it. do i change something in BIOS?

Yes, that will help alot. Could you list your system specs as to it will help in solving any problems that may occur before putting in your WinXP cd. Yes, you will need to modify the boot order in your BIOS set Cd-rom drive first, then either harddrive or floppy(either way will work if booting from the cd).

excellent. Okay system specs... hmm.. okay. Do you mean things like this?

external cache 512kb, enabled.

parallel ports: 378.

SDRAM at DIMMs: 1

Almost but, What kind of processor do you have and at what speed? How much RAM do you have? And What kind of video card and how much RAM.

cool, just noticed its athlon processor 800Mhz. RAM is quite 'big' i think because Championship Manager (prior 2003) ran like a dream... sigh.

im gonna start my quest to locate my windows discs now, and hopefully return with good news! Thanks for all the help, i will post back when i find something (the cds).

Well I just ask because if you install WinXP and you don't have enough RAM or processor is not fast enough, WinXP is going to be running pretty slow. I was able to get a computer with 500mhz processor and 64mb RAM to run but was really slow, put in another 64mb RAM stick and it ran a little faster but not much.

cool, i get what you mean. i dont want to take 2 steps forward and 3 back. although tbh at the moment my computer isnt taking any steps anywhere to maybe she will just enjoy the exercise even if it is backwards.

cool, i get what you mean. i dont want to take 2 steps forward and 3 back. although tbh at the moment my computer isnt taking any steps anywhere to maybe she will just enjoy the exercise even if it is backwards.

LOL very funny.