I was looking for someone in chat to help me but will do it this way as i'm about to leave the house to go shopping.

I have my brothers laptop here and he wants to know how he can fix something on it.

I'm not sure what happened to make the problem occur but here is the details

Dell Latitude CPi laptop with win 98
when you start it up you get a choice of how to start it up (i.e safemode, normal, logged) and it tells me that windows has detected a registry/configuration error. Choose, command prompt only and run scanreg.

then its gives me a whole bunch of shit and it says No drives found, aborting installation
rem- by windows setup - LH c: windows/command/mscdex /D:mscd000
c:\>c:\progra"1\common"1\networ"1\viruss"1\40"1\.xx\scanpm.exe c:\ band command or file name

after that I only have the C:\> prompt ready for me to do something.

Like i said before i have no idea what he did with the damn thing. If you have any ideas as to a way to work with it and get it back up and running then let me know. If its completely fucked then let me know that too. If you need any other info let me know that too.

type 'windows' at the c prompt and see if it starts up. otherwise format it and re-start. as a last resort.

He's either deleted some very important windows files, or has a virus.

First, boot the PC with either a rescue floppy in the floppy drive, or a virus scanner CD(Norton systemworks/Ontrack etc) in the CD-ROM drive.

You may have to set the CD-ROM drive up as a boot device in the BIOS first. If you tell me what comes up when you enter the BIOS, I may be able to give you directions. Failing that netters will know.
(Instructions on how to enter the bios should be in the instruction manuel that came with it)

Now when you boot it, it should come up with an emergency virus rescue/virus scan option. Click this, and it should scan the C: drive.

If no viruses are detected then try booting with the windows 98 disk in the drive, and reinstalling over the old windows.

If none of that works, then format the hard disk and reinstall from there.

typing windows did nothing.. said bad command or file name!

RCM - unfortunatly its probably a virus and dumb ass has a virus scanner that is out dated and it was installed by the previous owner. now, i took his CDrom drive out and put the floppy drive in to use his Win 98se boot disk and NOTHING happened. I don't know what to type at the c prompt. Other then that I have no idea how to do anything else discussed.

okay i tried typing WIN and it did start up windows but then came up with a black screen that said a registry file was invalid or something like that then i let that go and a blue screen came up that said

Invalid VxD dynamic link call from VWIN32(01) + 0000714 to devise "0009", service 1.
Your windows configuration is invalid. Run the windows setup program again to correct this problem.

To continue running windows hit y or enter to quit hit N blah blah blah

so the only disk i have is that boot floppy disk and it seems his floppy won't work.

I'd go for a straight format and reinstall then

Next time you get the C prompt up, type "format C:". This should wipe the hard disk and eliminate the virus.

You'll need a Windows CD get the computer up and running again though.

It's reinstall windows time then. To be honest, trying to talk you through all the possible things to do to attempt a fix would take some time, and probably require far more questions from you before we got there. I'd wipe the machine and start from scratch, then make sure you have a virus scanner !

thanks guys. I'm going to try the reinstall. i'll let you know what happens.

okay typing format c: says bad command or file name. NEXT?

Estimated time remaining: 27 min (yes i'm reinstalling right now) we got a win98 disk from the neighbor. woooooo hoooooo