I just bought a Compaq Armada 7400 PII 366 mhz from eBay. It came with a cd rom, but no floppy drive and the hard drive was erased.
I put a Windows 95 program disk in the cd drive to load as my operating system, but I got a message saying 1782 Disk Controller failure. The screen then flashes a few times and I get a message saying Non-System disk or disk error replace and strike any key when ready. Press a key and it keeps coming back with the Non-System disk message. Any help getting this up and running would be appreciated.
to install windows 95b 98 98se me 2k you need a start up floppy as that installs a basic cdrom driver to allow the install.
it will not install direct from cdrom like xp/vista
i have a Compaq Armada 1750 366mhz and that is running windows xp , i have had that thing so many years that it just sits in a cupboard.
your compaq will run xp , all bit a little on the slow side but it will run it.
look on ebay for a memory upgrade ( 128 meg pc66 )
fit that in the slot under the keyboard and you should then be able to do the same
those old laptops won't boot from a memory pen or a usb floppy so see if you can get a second hand floppy drive on ebay,
So this sounds like a you can't get there from here scenario. Thank you for all that info. I'll start looking for a floppy.
I bought a floppy drive. I put in windows 95 boot disk and turned on the computer. After it comes up to a command prompt I tried to remove floppy drive to insert the cd drive, but the computer beeps and locks up.
I borrowed a friends Win 95 operating system on diskettes. I turn on the computer. After it runs through the memory check the computer says 162-Systems Options Not Set. It runs awhile longer than it says
The following configuration options were automatically updated:
Total memory installed : 294912 Kbytes
CMOS checksum invalid, default values loaded
F1 Save changes F2 Ignore changes F10 Computer Setup
I press F1.
The setup starts but I get a message saying Setup cannot install Windows 95 on your computer. An error was detected while trying to read or write to your hard disk. To quit Setup, press F3.
I thought the problem may be a bad hard drive so I replaced it. Same results.
I've seen on ebay Win 95 boot disks on diskettes or cd's. Do you think that a bootable cd would work? That would make it so I wouldn't have to change drives. OR do you think I've got a different problem.
Thanks
the problem is in the memory count its screwing up the bios well if you can call it bios in those old compaqs.
lift the keyboard by pushing down the two tabs just under the bottom row of letters.
take out the memory you see in the slot.
restart the laptop it will warn you memory count differs save it and continue.
that laptop has 64meg onboard memory and someone has over loaded it.
the most those old models support is 196meg and thats only after a bios rom flash if thats not carried out 128 is the max.
if you wnt my honest option ditch windows 95 its a waste of time ask round your friends and see if any of them have a windows 98se disk laying about.
you will get a better o/s with 98se then 95 can ever offer you.