Here is a list of some common error messages along with some cures to the trouble.

Insert disk with COMMAND.COM in drive A and press and key to continue

This means that you computer cant find the dos or the windows files. Stick a system disk in the drive (A) and press enter. If you have a disk in the drive already, you may need to make it a system disk or boot from the hard drive. To make a system disk you have a couple of options.

One is to use the control panel in Windows 9x. Double clicking the Add/Remove icon brings up a window which will help make that disk you need. Below is an illistration of that window:

This also happens when trying to boot some bad disks. The error then displays "Disk Unusable."

To disable protection on a file in windows, you must run an attribute on the file. This also is done in DOS mode. You must get to the directory where the file is located and type in "attrib filename" to change the protection. The following picture shows the options for "attrib".

Abort, Retry, Fail?

This message is returned after the computer attempts to access a drive that had no media or disk in it. Make sure the drive is closed, the disk is formatted correctly, or that the drive is setup properly. You just press the letter corresponding the next action to continue. R for retry, F for fail, or A for abort.

If you are getting this message in Windows 95, you may want to check the autoexec.bat and config.sys files to see how the emm386.exe file is set to run. It should be allowed to run on its own settings. If you have to run it, set it to auto mode. There is more information in the Windows directory called config.txt and msdosdrv.txt. These files are opened with the notepad and are very useful.

DOS does not start the same memory manager. It uses the himem.sys to test and use the high memory addresses. You may also turn on the emm386 by specifying it in your config.sys file. MS DOS has a list of text and help files in the DOS directory that will be good resources as well.

If you see this at startup then something in the autoexec.bat or config.sys is mispelled or looking in the wrong directory. These files can be edited using the editor in the DOS or windows\command directories. Just run the edit program or enter "type filename" to see the file displayed. These can be edited in Win95 by right clicking on them and selecting edit.

If you copied some of the DOS files from a friends computer and put them on your computer you may get this error message when you run the program. You may also get this error from running a buddies startup disk. If you've booted from a disk and get this message when you start working with the files on your hard drive, you may have to check the version of the disk you booted from.

To check your DOS version, type "ver" at the DOS prompt.

In windows 3.x or 9x you can use the file manager. The free space is displayde if you click on the drive you wish to check from within the directory tree. Notice the illistrations below. The file manager is shown at the left, windows explorer from win9x is shown on the left. In both examples, the space information is on the bottom left.

Next, add the following line to your hard disks config.sys file (also described above somewhere):

Stacks 9,256

When you reboot your computer with the new config.sys, it should be back to normal. If not, the number 9 after the "stacks" can be changed to 12. If still wrong try 15 (notice the changes in multiples of three.) Just do not change the 256 as it needs to be the same.