My dad recently brought home from his work a Pentium 3 CPU. We hooked it up with our monitor and everything but when we booted it up, it turns out it doesn't have Windows. It goes straight to a business system that reports on sale logs, etc. We can't get an MSDOS prompt to come up (even by presssing F8 or whatever the key is that brings it up, it appears that the computer either doesn't have it or we just don't know how to access it), and since the computer just goes straight into the businuess program/system/whatever, we have no way of formatting it in order to install Windows ME. Putting the Windows disc in at startup does nothing, it still just goes straight to the businuess program and doesn't react to the ME CD.

Can you get into the BIOS? In the BIOS, you should be able to change the boot order so that the CD drive is the first drive your computer looks at. This would allow you to boot from your Windows ME boot CD.

What is the exact make and model of your computer?

Keep us posted.

Sorry, I'm computerly handicapped...what's a BIOS and how would I get into it? As for the actual make of the computer...my dad is the only one that's seen it boot up, the only info I know about it is what it says on the back: Gateway ATXSTF P03 910 Series, and it has a Pentium III proccessor.

Thank for your quick reply, by the way. :D

I just talked to my Dad, he said he went into the BIOS and change the Boot-Up order to look at the CD first, like you said, but the computer didn't recognize our ME CD. The CD is a burnt copy, but it has worked on every computer it's ever been tried on (which is lots, since it was used at my Dad's office for all those computers), so I don't see why that would be it. And this is a Gateway Pentium III, so it's not some backwater brand that doesn't recognize Windows...at least it shouldn't not recognize it, in my opinion, there must be something else preventing it from doing so.

And he is sure he SAVED the settings? Do you have a Windows boot diskette that you can try? You will have to change the boot order again.

That model looks more like a file server from the information that I have found so far.
Does that sound correct?

Here's the manual I found.
Manual