HD Accidentally Deleted

Hello,

In working with a laptop with Windows 98SE and trying to clean some items out, a tab was inadvertently left checked instead of unchecking it (the Windows cache). It went on to delete the whole hard drive and now when trying to boot up all that appears is the "C:" prompt. Guess it has gone into DOS mode?

Since there is no emergency reboot disk and the system is not presently accepting the factory CD with all of the programs at this time, perhaps because it only defaults to the "C" prompt, those cannot be used.

Tried going to START --> RUN and then input "Win" there but that did not work to try to get Windows back. Would appreciate any suggestions to see if it is possible to get going again where I could start to rebuild the programs that it lost. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

 

I'm a little confused. You say you

but you also say

If the Start button appears then you are in Windows.

If you are only getting the C:> prompt try typing:
CD C:\Windows

If the prompt then changes to C:\Windows>

Then type

Win

If it doesn't change type DIR and see what is listed if anything.

 

_______________________
Thanks Yargwel for responding! Yes, you are right. I should have explained that first part further. I got the START button only once before the system permanently defaulted into DOS mode. Then I could not see the START command anymore. I did try what you said and I will summarize so you will understand what happened each step of the way. I will start at the beginning.

When computer first boots up a prompt in a Red Box appears and says:
"Save to Disk Partition is too small
Save to Disk feature is disabled
Run Phdisk for information. FILE: Create New

Hit any key to exit." And on the bottom of the screen you see the following:
Press <F1> to Resume, <F2> to Setup

I pressed F1. (Note: The system will go off in a few minutes while working on this screen unless one hits the Enter key as needed to bring it back up).

Anyway, having pressed F1, the new screen coming up says: "WARNING, Reg/Config error."

The next message comes in a box with a series of prompts: Normal, Safe Mode, F 2 or something, etc. and F5 is highlighted, so I press that one. The page that then comes up is the one you have been helping me with in your last posting. (All of what I have written up to this point was just for *information* as to what happens until I get to this point). Now....

I then get the C:\> prompt. If I type "Win" there, I will get the message "Bad command or file name". But doing as you said to type: CD C:\WINDOWS will then *change* the prompt to C:\Windows>

If at this point I type "Win", I will once again get the prompt "Bad command or file name" but typing "DIR", once again, will bring up many directory subjects (just as before) that are apparently there such as History, Tempor~1, ESLogs, DownLo~1, Locals~1, MediaSyn, Twain 32, etc. At the bottom it says 6 Files (s) and then 48 dir (s).

That is as far as I can go. At this point the prompt C:\Windows> is still there but I don't know what else to input at this point to try to bring up Windows or tap into one of the directories mentioned? (I guess I couldn't do that come to think of it because where the Directories are listed the mouse won't work.) What would you recommend at this point?

Thanks again for your help. You appear to know much about this and your help is much appreciated!

 

Sorry that I haven't got back to you sooner but I've been away for the last week or so.

You say you get the series of prompts which includes Safe Mode.

Get that list back up and try the Safe Mode option. Does that get you into Windows?

In the meantime from the C:\Windows> prompt (or C:\> prompt it doesn't matter) try typing Scanreg/fix.