MonitorWare Knowledge Base

Hi,
I have just hit a bit of a problem that i was hoping someone might be able to help me out with.
I am in the process of formating the c drive on my Hewlett Packard Omnibook 5700CT laptop. I have fomated the drive but now when I restart the computer with a 95 start up disc from bootdisk.com I get 'The compression driver cannot be set up correctly........... Press any key to continue.

I do that and for a split second a windows 98 screen flashes up then the C:\> prompt appears. Then nothing can be done. I have tried starting with the 95 boot disc in but the same thing happens. I have tried re-formating the drive by typing format c: from the a:\> promt i get 'bad command or file name'

Now I am completly stuck. It looks like I cann't even re-format the c drive and start from afresh anymore.

Please help

Cheers
Lenny

I have heard that this notebook has no cdrom. Are you trying to install windows 95 or 98 and are you trying to install it from floppies?

I am trying to install 95 with a cd, the computer has a swappable floppy/cd drive bay.

Maybe your cd has an error? Have you tried another WIn9x cd?

I have tried putting the win98 start up disc in and started the computer from there pressing 1 at start up for cd support. This is what i get
The diagnostic tools were successfully loaded to drive D.
Device driver not found: 'MSCD001'.
No valid CDROM device drivers selected

A:\>


Ihave a windows 95 CD Rom setup Boot Disk (floppy) sat on the desk with me but have no idea how to install it from the prompt that I am at now. (see above)

Now what do i do...........

Hrm...doesn't the noetbook support cdrom direct boot?
This Floppy bootdisk simply doesn't find the cdrom drive (why ever).

You can try alternative bootdisks, take a look to this site: http://www.bootdisk.com/

I am not sure if this adds anything helpful... But I have a notebook with an external USB CD ROM and if I would boot the machine to DOS it will not find the CD because it has no USB drivers...

Jut my 2cts (which may actually be worthless ).

Rainer

Andre,
I am using disks from the site, I mentioned that in the original post.
What about this though...
I am now trying to re-format and load 95 so I have downloaded the 95 start up disk from Bootdisk.com, inserted it into the floppy drive. from the A prompt I hae typed a:\ format c: /s
I then get this message,
Insert DOS disk in drive A:
and press ENTER when ready.....

Now I am really confused.

thanks rainer, yep you were right

I am not going anywhere near USB. The CD slots into the same slot as the floppy

Oh indeed! Didn't see that!
However you haven't answered my other question: Doesn't support the cdrom drive boot cd's? This is configured in the bios usually.

Regarding that error you get, I am sorry but I can not help with that error code. I can only tell you other ways around the original boot disk.

Have you tried this site? http://www.startdisk.com/Web1/ubd/ubd.htm

lenny wrote:The CD slots into the same slot as the floppy

Hold on !
Do you mean you can either have the Floppy OR the cddrive?

If yes I can tell you why it doesn't work

Reagrding the question about the cdrom support.
When i go into the setup utility at boot up there isn't an option for CD Rom boot up so i guess you are right there. there is only an option for FDD and HDD.

What do i do now, I haven't got any OS on floppy disc. Do i need to get 3.1 on floppy, install that, then upgrade from there? I hope not!

Is there another way.

Now I have inserted the 98 start up disc and typed in format c: /s
I get warning, all data will be lost........Proceed with format?
Should I?

your last question....
I hope the last post anwsered it but otherwise, yes the computer has a CDrom drive that can be slotted in and before I formated the first time it worked fine.

Please stop formating your harddisk lol, that doesn't seem to be the problem
Your cdrom still works fine, this is more a driver issue or something like this I guess.

Rergarding that BIOS Option, do you have the posibility to change the boot order (cdrom must be plugged in I guess)? If yes I would suggest to move the cdrom drive to the top.

And then (I just want to make sure), but do you hav floppy and cdrom plugged in the same time? Because from your previous posts it sounds like only one is possible and you have to swap between Floppy and cdrom.

second question first (just to confuse matters a little more). The floppy and the CD Drive can only be connected one at a time as they BOTH slot into the same place on the front of the laptop.

First qusetion second! From the setup I am not given the option to boot from the CD Rom at any time even when the CD ROM is installed. (The CDROM is not give as an option, FDD is though.)