windows 95 bios problems

[ihatecompuers]

Please ,please,please HELP me!!!!!

My mates just given me an IBM Thinkpad 760ED laptop.He's had this laptop in his loft for the last 8 years due to it not working so he's given it to me to see if I can fix it but I'm not a computer expert so I need lots of help.All he could tell me is that it was'nt working when he got it so he formatted the hard drive and messed up the laptop even more.
When I boot up the computer I get a message saying "Invalid system disk.Replace the disk,and then press any key".I can't write anything in from this point onwards.
When i bootup and go into the bios i get a screen saying Easy setup with the following icons to click on;Config,Date/time,Password,startup,test and restart.
.When i click on Config I have the following options;Memoery,systemboard and Initialize.Nothing happens when i press Initalize.When I press Password or Start up nothing happens.When I run the tests everything comes back o.k.

I am now at a lost on where to go from here.
The laptop does not have a floppy drive but has a cd drive.

\Please help me bring life back into this old laptop!!!!

 

[StasysPC]

try another complete reformat if you can... then reinstall the OS, or if possible upgrade to Windows 2000 Pro (should work on that laptop w/no problems)... I had that error alot with older hard drives and a complete format usually fixed it.

 

[diduknowthat]

i had that same message with my harddrive, ended up buying a new hd.

 

[user87]

do you have a startup disk? maybe use that to get into dos and restore the system files. maybe the system file/s are missing/corrupt or something. run the startup disk, get into dos and type "sys c:" and restore the system files.

^not sure if it'll fix the problem, but maybe try?