I have an old Toshiba laptop that I inherited. I have had it swept by the Geek squad at Best Buy but can't get Windows 2000 installed on it. I have an old Windows 95 boot diskette and am at the DOS prompt of A: I can't get the the software loaded, any ideas?

Hi,

Please tell us more info that you cannot load the OS.

Any error message? beep code?

tell us what you have seen. So we can better assist you.

To install Windows 95 from a boot floppy here is a listing of all DOS commands GO TO BOTTOM OF PAGE IN LINK

MS-DOS help and commands

I am smiling while thinking how to setup windows 95. Nothing I remember hehehe

Why not try Windows 98 instead? I guess there will no big difference in Hardware requirements.

Welcome to D-A-L.

Don't bother with a floppy boot disk. Boot the machine with the Win 2000 CD.

With a blank hard dsik, and no floppy in the floppy drive, the machine should find the Win 2000 CD and boot from it.

If by chance the hard disk has boot files on it and it boots to the disk, or, the CDROM isn't in the bios boot order;

When you first start your machine, the initial screen that comes up identifies motherboard information (long string of characters) and your bios ID. (Award, AMI, Phoenix, etc) There is usually a line at the bottom of the screen with the key to press to enter the bios (also known as SETUP) utility. On many machines, this is the DEL key. It can also be F1, F2, F10, etc. If you don't see this (The manufacturers LOGO screen can sometimes cover it.) Here's a link for various bios and manufacturer entry keys; How to access/enter Motherboard BIOS

Once you gain entry into the bios, the keys to navigate and modify settings will be shown on every screen. Look for a BOOT catagory, then look for BOOT DEVICE ORDER (or similar). It's here that you can set which device is searched (for boot files) first, second, third, and sometimes fourth. Move/set the CDROM as the first device.

Post back with your results and any further questions.