problems with laptop

hope i'm posting this in the correct place .

i've got an old laptop from my wifes work (with the permission of the boss)

some of things about it
1. it does not have any usb ports
2. in the bios / boot sequence , it only shows hard drive and floppy
3. it does have a cd rom drive
4. it was running windows 95
5. i wanted xp on it , ofcourse it would not install xp over 95
6. i don't have the original windows 95 disc
7. i don't know if there was driver discs for the cd rom
8. i did a format of the harddrive
9. now it is a laptop with a formatted harddrive and no operating system

no problem you say use a startup floppy
then when you get to the part , start computer using cd rom support
enter and then it's straight forward ,,,not so
it goes through all the list of the parts and file size and all the rest
then gets to a part
A:\>
when i try to load the xp disc from here ,typing in setup.exe ,
it comes up
this program cannot be run in dos mode

tried changing
A:\>
to
C:\>
to
E:\>
i even tried going to microsoft site , download the program to put xp setup onto 6 discs , and try doing it that way , but put first disc in and after 20 minutes it still was sitting saying ,it was checking the componets...if this is the way to load in using these discs , how long do they take , and if not can someone HELPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP

 

With this age of computer, you have no chance of running Win XP on it. So do not waste your time.

I would check out somewhere like ebay for a Win 95 disc or think about trying a Linux distro.

 

what is linux distro

 

Hello,

Linux is a superior operating system that pwns Windows. It is fast and secure and on average, most distributions will run far more quickly and smoothly on older computers than comparable Windowses.

Distro is short for distribution. There are many Linux distributions.

To get you started, here are some nice links for reading:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux

http://www.linux.org/

http://www.ubuntu.com/

You can also try live CDs to see how the operating systems feel, without any harm to your existing setup. Ubuntu, Knoppix, Puppy Linux are a good way to start. Knoppix has a very good hardware detection. Most Linux operating systems have a live CD, which allows you to see if your machine is compatible.

You are also welcome to try reading some of the installation / configuration tutorials that I have written (links in the sig).

Cheers.

Mrk

 

Take a look here or here for example.

 

Linux is another kind of operating system, a (free) alternative to Windows. It's also faster than Windows and would likely run a lot better. Linux can be a bit more complex if you start trying to do a lot of tweaking with the operating system, but if you're only really doing the normal stuff then you could pretty much just install and use.

 

thanks for the info....got ubuntu on disc now . but seem to have the same problem . i cannot load an operating system on the pc because i cannot get any disc to load from dos......looks more like a bin i'll be looking for