Computer stuck in Windows 95 DOS mode

I'm moving this from the "DOS program for running CD's (TYPEABLE)" to here for a number of reasons. I have no idea what I am doing, and that has lead to MANY errors on my part. Long story short, a Windows file got corrupt, and I decided to set it to DOS mode and used FDISK to reformat it. Now it thinks it's in DOS mode and there are no files to modify to get it out of said DOS mode. If I get a new hard drive will that fix it or should I just give up?

Hi, yeas I would think can give up on it if do not have the Disk or the Key

 

If you formatted it then there would be no files on it.  Is it booting from the HHD or a Disk or ??   Have you done typed DIR at the Command Prompt.  Have you Typed Exit at the Command Prompt.

I just checked. It was booting from the floppy drive, and I think what the floppy is doing is it is emulating booting 95 into DOS mode. When it boots into the HDD it boots into PLOP bootloader. When I try to load into the HDD, it gives the error warning no valid bootsector signature. Typing dir into the c:/ prompt gives an error, and when I get fail it gives me exit code 24. Im guessing the HDD is messed up, but then how am I loading into PLOP? Thank you for those preliminary checks!

Edited by Eevee1, 06 September 2022 - 06:56 AM.

Welcome.

 

PLOP has possibly made a invisible partition much like Windows 10 for UEFI boot.  So it is defaulting to the only thing in sees/finds

 

Need to find a tool that shows partitions in DOS boot up environment.   I would think giving up on this system and if have 4gig of ram move to Linux Mint Cinnamon or another Linux Distro.

 

Can ask here : https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/f/11/linux-unix/ But am sure would need to boot from CD or USB to do anything.