Member Avatar for kenricktom

Hey hey can anyone help my, I have been using a computer with windows 98, the problem was that the C drive was full so naturally I moved some of the files to its D and E drives unfortunately being slightly retarded I inadvertently must have moved some of the files that boot up windows, so when I reset my comp it could not find the relevant files it just says insert systems boot disk and keeps looking in the A: drive every time I press any key. Unfortunately I do not have the windows 98 cd or any kind of recovery disk. Can I get into windows through BIOS or anything clever like that? I would be most grateful if anyone could help my.

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by TallCool1

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Short version: the machine needs an alternate environment that can see and restore the moved system files (and preserve long file names). and are right that you must boot from something else; correctly warns that plain DOS-mode tools can miss long filenames. Below are practical, low-risk recovery routes you can try before wiping the drive.

  1. Safest, easiest: attach the hard drive to another working Windows PC (use a secondary IDE/SATA bay or a USB-to-IDE/SATA adapter). In Explorer enable "Show hidden files" and turn off "Hide protected operating system files", then restore files into their original folders (look for C:\Windows and C:\Windows\Command). After copying, restore file attributes so the OS treats them as system/hidden where appropriate:
attrib +s +h IO.SYS
attrib +s +h MSDOS.SYS
attrib +s +h COMMAND.COM

  1. If you cannot attach the drive, use a Linux-based rescue CD/USB (or a current rescue environment) so you have full long-file-name support and can move files with the filesystem intact. Typical steps:

    sudo fdisk -l
sudo mkdir /mnt/win
sudo mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt/win
sudo mv /mnt/win/WhereYouPutStuff /mnt/win/Windows/

    Adjust device names to match your machine.

  2. If you cannot identify which files were moved, first back up all personal data (Desktop, My Documents, mail folders) to external media. Do not format until backup is complete. If recovery attempts fail, a reinstall is the reliable final option.

Notes and cautions: avoid working only from a tiny DOS startup floppy because it often lacks long-file-name handling and can make recovery harder. If unsure about any step, stop and seek hands-on help—accidental formatting is easy and will destroy recoverable data.

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Member Avatar for ZeekeDaGeek

Unfortunately, you need SOME way to make the computer boot.
See if a friend has a win 98 startup disk. This will alow you to gain access to the drives and hopefully undo what you did.

Best of luck.

Bob

Member Avatar for caperjack

You should,t make fun of retarted people ,most of them wouldn,t do such a silly thing !:) http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm
Anyway get a win98 boot disk here and if you know the names of the files you moved you could use the dos copy command to move them back if you don't know the names and where they belong you will have to format and reload windows .also some dos commands here

Member Avatar for TallCool1

Hey hey can anyone help my, I have been using a computer with windows 98, the problem was that the C drive was full so naturally I moved some of the files to its D and E drives unfortunately... I inadvertently must have moved some of the files that boot up windows, so when I reset my comp it could not find the relevant files it just says insert systems boot disk and keeps looking in the A: drive every time I press any key

Moving files around under any version of Windows is dangerous, due to the Windows Registry -- it can't find moved files. Even worse is using a boot disk to try to move stuff back, since there is no long-file-name support under Win 98's DOS mode, and the system stuff often has long names.

I would use a standard Windows 98SE boot disk just this far: using the SYS C: command to re-write the system files to the hard drive to enable you get far enough in for long-file-name support, then go on from there.

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