bad or missing command interpreter

[kirk6677]

I have a acer 486 with a overdrive chip to 133 that my father gave me to mess with. I thought it might be a good thing to start a network with.
Well I was going to format the hard drive first and I decided to debug it.because it had some problems. At the time it was runing win95.Well after I got the debug code fineshed I shut down and started it back up and instead of using the acer backup disk I wanted to use a win98 startup disk.When I tried to use it I got a bunch of computer language or gibberish.But when I use the acer startup disk I go to a: and then I get this promt=bad or missing command interpreter name the command interpreter (eg, c:\command.com) that may not be exact but its something to that sort. No matter what I do it will allways say that. if I go to a: with the acer disk and then switch to a win98 disk ill get the same thing even if I just take the disk out it will still say that. Ive also tried changing the floppy drive and i still get it .So right now I can only get commputer gibberish or bad or misspeled command interpreter . so now im lost can anybody help me!

[scotter]

run scan disk on that floppy it might fix it sounds like the floppy is bad if that does not fix it your going to need a new boot disk /forum/smile.gif

[Pantion]

Just create another boot disk or copy command.com back to the disk. Just check the disk for any errors before doing anything else or the new file may get corrupted as well.

[kirk6677]

well I tried three different startup disks and I also pulled the floppy out of my other pc and I know it works cause I use it all the time. but that still made no difference. so any more suggestions?
I need help bad!Not bad help.

[DHatAVI]

Sound like you may have had a boot virus on the floppy, that has now transfered itself to the HD. I've had the same thing happen to me also. If you have access to a computer that has good virus protection on it, do a scan on those floppy's, I found my disks contained the 'junkie boot' virus.
That is the same message that I would get. Once you clean the virus out, (if that's what it is) you will have to replace the command.com files with the same versions.

David

[This message has been edited by DHatAVI (edited 11-07-1999).]

[kirk6677]

Thanks I'll try that when I get home, from work.Last night I took the hard drive out and put it in my other pc and the I was able to put in the sys files and format the disk. but when I try to put win98 on it the startupdisk goes though normally but when I try to type in the word setup, I get a bad command or file name. but I did get a chance to run scandisk and it sayed everyting was ok.so Im close than I was before but I still not tere yet.ANY MORE THOUGHTS?

[jonathankeeping]

There are a number of possible reasons for the problem you a recieving. The most likely is a master boot record virus on your hard drive. Everytime you boot (even with a floppy disk), the MBR on the HD will be accessed. If is area contain virus code then it is posible for you to recive these sorts of errors. It may also be that when you ran debug or some other program, you managed to corrupt the MBR. The best advice I can give is to wipe the MBR using FDISK. Just type FDISK /MBR at the dos prompt, and this will repalace the old MBR with a fresh clean one. If this doesn't work post back with a bit more info. eg HD size, FAT 16 / 32... Good Luck!!!

[kirk6677]

Thanks for the info. I decided to put the hard drive in my other pc because when I do that I dont get the computer language that i was getting in the other one . and I just decided to try the debug agian and then I fdisked it and it let me format it also anyways I finnaly got it working, whatever it was (probably a virus)but I printed all this info you guys gave me and ill keep it for next time thank abunch