I am working on a compaq 425. I have partitioned the hard drive and now i have tried to get the system back up. This system only has a floppy drive and had windows 3.1 on it before. I have got a (supposably good) copy of windows 3.1 but the system will not accept them. What can i do to get this system back up and running. All i can get is a message saying no operating system.

Compaqs are notoriously proprietery. Having a good 3.1 disk may not be enough. What messages are you getting when you try to install? What steps do you take to install?

To install windows 3.x you have to install DOS first, v3.3 or higher. I recommend 6.22. Win3.x will not install at all until it finds DOS installed. THat's why you get the "No Operating System Found" message.

Compaq's were highly proprietary even then, you may need the setup disk made for the computer to set CMOS and get the machine ready to operate. Compaq still has many of them posted on their website, but they are not easy to find.

Tip: Once you get the win3.x setup to start, if it keeps giving you a message to insert the next disk, you do and it says the same again, turn off smartdrive in autoexec.bat. Place rem and a space in front of the line referring to smartdrive, save and exit. Mentioned this since it's a fairly common problem with win3.x setups. Took me ages to find out the fix...but it's in the troubleshooting section of the MS win3.x user's manual, the last place I looked... http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/rolleyes.gif

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I have looked everywhere -it seems- on Compaq's site for the restoration disk that came with a friend's computer and have yet to find one. I entered the serial number but keep getting a message telling me that they can't find it. I know without a doubt it is the proper number. It says "serial"
or S/N, one of the 2... but it is clear what the number is.
Where do I need to look on their site?
Thank you

You might want to try http://www.compaqrepair.com/ ,they have alot of the restore disks

DDNC