I have an older Compaq Presario 1240 with a 4GB hard drive, 64M of Ram and an older Phoenix BIOS (the version number is not shown in the setup program). The original OS is Win98. When trying to reload the operating system, problems occured in booting from the Win98 floppy (with CD support). I repeatedly checked the boot order in setup, it shows floppy/CD/HDD even though when running the PC always booted to the hard drive first. I finally got setup to begin – it went as far as setting up the hardware and stalled. Upon restarting it goes to the same spot and stalls. I’ve tried to write zeros to the drive with PowerMax or use DBAN to start fresh – laptop won’t boot from floppy! When running, clock was accurate – so I assume CMOS battery is OK. Now when booting I get “operating system not found” message and still cannot run ANYTHING from floppy – even though BIOS boot order is correct. Can I “force” the system to boot any floppy -or- somehow wipe it clean without disassembling the machine and then reload 98 or ME? Thanks!