One explanation would be that no operating system is on the harddisk.
If that is the case, you have to:

1. Format the harddisk

2. Make changes necessary to access access the CD-ROM

3. Install Windows from the CD-ROM.

Before starting, do you have a product ID for the Windows CD-ROM? You
will need one.

1. Download a Windows Startup Disk. You can obtain a Windows Startup
Disk at:

http://www.bootdisk.com/

Put the disk in drive A: before turning on the computer. When you turn
it on, the computer should boot from drive A:. If it does not, you may
have a hardware problem.

If the computer does boot from drive A:, first run FDisk and set the
harddisk up for a single partition. Then reboot, with the Startup Disk
still in drive A:, and run the format program. Specify that the format
program should use "/s".  As follows:
   format C: /s

Again restart the system. But, at this point you should be able to
boot the computer from drive C:, so remove the Startup disk from drive
A: before turning the computer on.

Now, add your CD-ROM driver to the boot disk. The boot disk might be
drive C: or it might be a Windows Startup Disk that you can insert
into drive A:.

The CD-ROM driver will normally have a name with the letters CD in it
and it will have the extension .SYS. One way to get a CD-ROM driver is
to run the installation program that came with the CD-ROM. Also, you
can usually get a driver from the web site of the companmy that made
the CD-ROM. Or you can search your C: drive for *CD*.SYS.

Using Notepad or any word processor, make a text file, name it
CONFIG.SYS and add it to the boot disk.  This file should look like
this, but with the name of your CD-ROM driver in place of
CDDRIVER.SYS:
DEVICE=CDDRIVER.SYS /D:MSCD000
DEVICE=HIMEM.SYS

Add a copy of MSCDEX.EXE to the boot disk. You can get MSCDEX from the
folder C:\Windows/Command.

Using Notepad or any word processor, make a text file, name it
AUTOEXEC.BAT and add it to the bootdisk.  It should look like this:
MSCDEX.EXE /D:MSCD000

At this point, you should have a computer that will boot from drive C:
and that can access a CD-ROM. Insert the Windows CD-ROM and run
"setup.exe" on that CD-ROM.

Bill Starbuck (MVP)