I am assuming that you have a C = primary active partition?

My guess is that you do not have format.com and sys.com on your boot floppy.
If they are, in fact, on your boot floppy then after you  boot to A:>
type
Path =a:\

then type
format c: /s

If they are not on your boot floppy then copy them from the
\windows\command directory of the DOS version you made the boot floppy from.

Alternatively go to http://www.freepctech.com/pc/002/files010.shtml and
download the MS Windows98 Boot disk. Then, while in windows, put a clean
floppy in the A drive, and double click the downloaded exe file. It will
launch and make you a suitable boot disk. When it is finished you can boot
off the floppy.

Now type
format c:/s

If you get the same message then now you can type
Path = a:\

that should do it.

Rode
The NOSPIN Group
http://freepctech.com


At 02:03 PM 3/4/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>I have about a 5 year old computer that I'm trying to re-format the C
>drive on.  I'm using Windows95. When I tried to format, the system was
>off, and I turned in back on with a boot disk in.  I tried the steps
>offered on the site but unfortunately when I typed, "format c: /s" I got
>an error message. This was done from a A prompt. The message I received
>was "bad command or invalid name."   I would appreciate any suggestions
>others might have to solving this problem.

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