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I have had a 1999 Dell Dimension XPS T600 for three years. It came with the factory install of Windows 98 Second Edition on it, and I cleaned it up and I loved that it was the complete original OEM install, software and everything. I used it for games and it absolutley ran like a beast. it was running just fine until last April. I have a Music Collection, and I disconnected the Drive and Used XP to Copy the Music File from my 2005 Dell Dimension 3000. Ok, so I thought that would be fine. Until I reconnected the drive, and when both the drives are plugged in, it does not boot at all, it is stuck in a reloop of trying to find the boot device as the CDROM keeps on making noise when it has the line blinking to try and find the os. Ok, so when I disconnect the CDROM drives, it makes a attempt to boot, but then I am greeted with this lovely error: Type the name of the command interpreter (ex. c:\command.com) and I have no idea on how to fix it. I do not want to reload Windows 98 on it, it is the factory install with the Dell logo at startup and everything, and it has games saved on there that you cannot copy and will not transfer to another game and will say cannot load it and documents that I just cannot replace. I desperatley need you guys help on this, and I know I must be crazy for not wanting to reload it, but I do not have a computer that has a factory Os really at all, and this is something that really means a lot to me. Can you guys help? I really really would deeply appreciate it if you guys could as I have not had this thing running for eight or nine months.
I myself have had an interest in re-creating an original DELL OEM install using available tools... and obviously doing so is not the easiest thing on Earth. If I may be frank, I question the extent of your knowledge...you should not have needed to futz with the physical CD-ROM drive, and could have most likely changed the boot order using a function key, or within the BIOS. If you are solely interested in preserving the bootscreen, you can simply copy LOGO*.SYS to another medium...but that's only a small portion of the OEM content... Now...unless something inadvertently happened to the several copies of COMMAND.COM while the drive was mounted under Windows XP.....I would suspect that hard drive is failing. Did you cause the drive to undergo any shock (e.g. dropping it)?
Since your intentions are now clear in regards to both topics.... let me ask you the silliest question on Earth...Why didn't you just use a flash drive instead of opening the thing up?
Last edited by user99672 on Wed Feb 10, 2016 5:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
If I remember correctly, I do not think so. If I did then it was completley inadvertant. I am trying to read up about the error as much as I can, and maybe that could be it hopefully, the last time I checked I remounted it to XP after it did that and all of the files seemed to be there just fine and everything
Seems like Command.com is missing. What I'd do is copy it from one of the *.CAB files inside the Win98 folder on your Windows 98 disc to your hard drive. You can use the EXPAND command in your MS-DOS boot disk or in the MS-DOS inside your Windows 98 CD to get the file extracted. Or if your computer has more than one CD Drive you can use a Linux Live CD or Hirens Boot CD to copy the file.
Chances are, if you've got that message, your hard drive is corrupt (and considering age, probably dying). COMMAND.COM doesn't just "go missing" on a working system.
If you have data on it that you need to save, the best bet would be to remove the hard drive, connect it to another PC (a USB IDE connector comes in handy for this sort of thing) and hope that the filesystem is still recognisable. If you want to resurrect the PC, I'd highly recommend getting a new hard drive (or use a CF card with adaptor).
