Hi everyone! I recently found an old laptop in my garage that my grandpa used for teaching. It runs on Windows 98, and I’m trying to log in, but I get this weird screen with white text on a black background. It shows a command prompt with C:> and I can type, but whatever I enter says it’s a bad command. The laptop is a Gateway 2000 SOLO 2100. Any help would be appreciated!
You’re at a DOS prompt. If Windows 98 is installed correctly, try typing ‘win’ and hit enter.
I tried that, but it just says ‘bad command or file name.’ Not sure what else to do, thanks for your help!
Sounds like Windows might not be installed. What happens if you type ‘dir/w’?
I typed that, and it shows ‘volume in drive C is HOST FOR C.’ I see a file named setupxlg.txt. Is that important?
It sounds like you’re starting in MS-DOS mode. Try typing ‘cd windows’ and then ‘win’ again.
I did that, and it says ‘HIMEM.SYS is missing.’ Could that mean Windows isn’t properly installed?
That suggests a critical file is missing or corrupted. Try ‘dir c:\windows\himem.sys /s’ to search for it.
I did that, and it says ‘Access denied.’ What does that mean?
It might be a protected file. Try removing the protection with ‘attrib -h -s -r c:\windows\himem.sys’.
I’ll try that! Then I’ll run ‘cd windows’ and ‘win’ again. Thanks!