[nodiea36]

I was given an old Compaq LTE 5400. Starts out fine says it's starting windows 95 but then I get this error.


The following file is missing or corrupted: C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS
There is an error in your CONFIG.SYS file on line 15

The following file is missing or corrupted: C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS

The following file is missing or corrupted: C:\WINDOWS\IFSHLP.SYS

The following file is missing or corrupted: COMMAND.COM
Type the name of the Command Interpreter
(e.g., C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND.COM)
C>


Any ideas would be GREATLY appreciated. It's been years since I had to deal with C prompts

I've tried reloading windows 95 but no dice. I've pressed F10 and change the setting so it boots by disc but no dice. It does pause when I typed after the C> A: setup.exe It seems to try to run but then comes back to the command.com error.

help
noidea36

[TheOutcaste]

Welcome to TSG!

Do you have Win95 on floppies, or a CD? The CD won't be bootable, you would have to boot with a Win95 boot floppy first.
Don't remember for sure on the floppies, but after booting with the first floppy it should either automatically start setup, or would leave you at an A:\> prompt, not a C:\> prompt.

At the C:\> Prompt, type Dir, see if that will list the folders in the root of the drive, if any.
If command.com is missing, even that may not work though. My Win95B system has command.com in C:\, C:\Windows, and C:\Windows\Command
When prompted to Type the name of the Command Interpreter, try all three paths to see if any of them work.

You can download a Win95/ Win95B boot disk from here if you don't have one:
http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm.

Boot with the Floppy, then you can run Dir C: to see what is on the drive. See if the C:\Windows folder is present. Could be just those two files are missing, or could be the entire folder is missing.

Typing SYS C: will copy the command.com file and other system files to the hard drive, so you can boot to the hard drive and run basic commands at least.

[SDFOX 7]

I have Win95 on my system as well.

I'm not sure how many files you are missing but if 'command' is the only file you are missing, you could create a Win95 floppy using TheOutcaste's link and then at the C:> prompt type

copy a:\command.com c:\

Let us know if either of these work for you. With Microsoft products there are multiple ways to do the same thing.

I am used to the command prompt and still prefer using it to copy multiple files. The command prompt is not dead yet!

[nodiea36]

I don't actually have a floppy drive on this computer. Only the CDrom drive. Is there way to boot using the CDrom drive?

Your correct about command.com error not allowing me to see any files by entering Dir. I merely get the same command.com error i listed above.

am I toast?

[TheOutcaste]

You can get an ISO image for a Win95 boot CD from here:
http://www.allbootdisks.com/download/iso.html

Boot with it, is sets the CD-ROM drive letter as R: and leaves you at an A: prompt. You can use it just like the floppy to sys the drive, or fdisk and start over, then insert the Win95 CD and re-install. Just remember the CD-ROM drive letter is R:

[nodiea36]

I downloaded from allbootdiscs but still get the same error. I'm thinking it is this command.com problem as we can't seem to get past it.

Thanks for your help,
noidea36

[TheOutcaste]

Doesn't sound like it's booting to the CD. To may have to go into the BIOS to set the CD-ROM drive first in the Boot order. The screen should show what key to press to enter the BIOS or Setup. DEL, F1, F2 are common.

Also, make sure you burned the iso file to the cd, and didn't just copy it. If you look at the disk you should not see the iso file, but would see these 31 files instead:
ATTRIB.EXE
AUTOEXEC.BAT
CD1.SYS
CD2.SYS
CD3.SYS
CD4.SYS
CHKDSK.EXE
COMMAND.COM
CONFIG.SYS
DEBUG.EXE
DELTREE.EXE
DRVSPACE.BIN
EDIT.COM
EXTRACT.EXE
FDISK.EXE
FIND.EXE
FORMAT.COM
HIMEM.SYS
IO.SYS
LABEL.EXE
MEM.EXE
MOVE.EXE
MSCDEX.EXE
MSDOS.SYS
REGEDIT.EXE
SCANDISK.EXE
SCANDISK.INI
SYS.COM
UNINSTAL.EXE
XCOPY.EXE
XCOPY32.EXE

If you need ISO burning software, either of these will do the trick:
ISO Burning Software

ISO Recorder
Img Burn

The first adds a Right click option to Copy a file to CD, the second is an actual program.

[nodiea36]

Would that be BIOS as in press f10, dos screen showing choices of intialization, security, exit etc? I pressed F10, then went to intialization, next hard drive boot sequence, then ended up somewhere where I could choose 1 boot device, 2nd, 3rd and 4th order. My choices are; notebook hard drive bay, multibay notebook, multibay I expansion base, multibay II expansion base. I've chosen every one just in case but no luck. I do see CDrom listed on the this screen (i'm assuming that's the bios) and it's listed in the multibay not multibay expansion. under multibay expansion it says 'none'.

[TheOutcaste]

Set the Multibay with the CD ROM as the First boot device and the hard drive bay as 2nd.

[nodiea36]

I do have it set in the way you specified.

Just remembered something when I woke up this morning! When I originally turned this on I received a message (and by the way, I'm so sorry I didn't think of it sooner). It was something about the hibernation file, I believe something about it being corrupt which you already know but it also said something about reloading default settings.

Hope my info helps and thanks so much for digging into it with me.
noidea36

[TheOutcaste]

Test the CD you burned on another system to make sure it's bootable. That will rule out an error of some kind in burning the CD.

Some older machines (CD-ROM drives actually, not the PC itself) had problems booting from burned CDs, so that could be part of the problem here. Not much you can do about it though, other than burning the disk at the slowest possible speed, that might help.

You can remove the hard drive and connect it to another system using an external USB Enclosure, then copy what ever files are needed to the drive to at least get command.com on it, and the CD-ROM driver so you can boot the hard drive and re-install if needed.

I suspect the corrupt hibernation file was deleted or you'd be getting the error every boot.