can I bypass the command to make a copy of my operating disk?

Good dayall.   I have a very old klh195 computer that has dos on it.  My problem is it sat so long unpluged that the time of day clock stop and is telling me to run setup program.  However when I try to load the operating system back in to the computer it prompts me to make a copy of the operating system disk.  I can't finding any 5.25 floppy disk locally to make the backup copy.  How can I bypass this copy command and just move on with loading the operating system so I can boot up this old dog.  Hope you can help becuase it has tons of valuable old stuff on this computer.

[Moderator]

Replace the CMOS battery...
If you load an OS on there at this point you will lose ALL your old data.
Best to hook up the drive in a working machine as a slave to get your data first before it's completely FUBAR'd.
Slave Drive Info

Another option that has worked for me is to leave it plugged in for a while, it seems to hold some sort of charge, then reboot it and hit the key combination that takes you into the cmos setup (on my very old pc, it was the del key) - you should be able to set the time and date there.... the boot should then work ok

Failing that, whip out the disk as suggested above

Good luck
Graham

Good dayall.   I have a very old klh195 computer that has dos on it.  My problem is it sat so long unpluged that the time of day clock stop and is telling me to run setup program.  However when I try to load the operating system back in to the computer it prompts me to make a copy of the operating system disk.  I can't finding any 5.25 floppy disk locally to make the backup copy.  How can I bypass this copy command and just move on with loading the operating system so I can boot up this old dog.  Hope you can help becuase it has tons of valuable old stuff on this computer.

The "Setup disk" it is referring to is NOT the OS setup disk but rather the disk included with some 286 PCs as well as IBM's PS/2 line of PCs that requires the use of a "setup floppy" to access the full CMOS setup (some include a rudimentary CMOS setup for emergencies).

In this case the PC is merely telling you that it "knows" the time is wrong since it always resets to Jan 1980, if memory serves, which is before the PC was manufactured, and the BIOS does a check for that and advises the use of the CMOS setup disk.

Some of this 1990 vintage 286 PC's settings are via DIP switches on the motherboard. Details and motherboard layout here

http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/motherboards/K/KLH-286-MODEL-195.html