Donated computer asking for boot disk on startup?

A friend of mine just got a computer donated. On startup, it is asking for a bootup disk and checks floppy first, then CD. I got into the setup menu and it only gives me those two choices to boot from. I don't what OS it is, so how do I know what boot disk to make???

 

Sounds as if your friend may have been donated a computer without an operating system. Try this link - http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm, and download and make the one for Win98SE. This should boot the computer and let you see what is on the C: drive, if anything. Hope this helps.

 

If the BIOS (or Setup) only shows a floppy drive and a CD drive, there's a VERY good chance that the hard drive has been removed. This is common practice with donated computers; the hard drives are removed to prevent any possible data 'theft' (even formatting a hard drive doesn't completely destroy the data, so the drives are removed and usually physically destroyed). If there is a hard drive present, it has probably been 'wiped' (meaning that zeros "00" have been written across the entire drive) and you'll need to create a partition, format it, and load an operating system of your choice (Linux is free!)... and don't forget you'll need drivers too!

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