Help with old POS "Compaq Deskpro 2000"

[Asimov]

I recently got an old Compaq machine. Since it had a weird bios and I couldnt get it to boot from floopy I decided I would take out the HDD, stick it in my own machine and format from windows.

The problem is that when I stick it back in the Compaq I get this error, as I should, telling me to remove all non-system disks or some similar crap just as if there is no OS.

Of course immediately after I realised this was a bad idea because I still cant get into the bios to change the boot settings.

Then I decided to copy the content from a pre-install of windows to the newly formatted harddrive. No luck, same results.

Its really starting to $hit me off. Help would be greatly appreciated. As I've really got no clue...

[Sidney]

I think you will find that this Compaq stores its setup routines on a hidden partition on the disk.
Formatting the disk has probably overwritten that information.
Your only chance is to search Compaq website and see if there is anything available to reconstitute that hidden partition and its setup routines.

[Asimov]

Thanks Sydney. I thought as much.

I'll have a search around.

If anyone knows anything more, let me know.