CONFIGMG Windows error and BIOS upgrading problems

My Dimension XPS-P100c with W98-1st ed. (a nine year workhorse) finally stalled, after a power failure, with the CONFIGMG Windows Protection Error message and a lot of valuable data.

Following Microsoft article and messages on the DELL forums, the fixing of this problem should start with updating the BIOS to the latest version, but ONLY if it is NOT already updated.

Here was the FIRST PROBLEM – is the BIOS of the latest version?

In the XPS-P100c Setup – Bios Version A02; a starting line (in the SAFE mode) – Bios Version 2.05.08; the latest DELL BIOS upgrade for my system – A02 of 05.22.96 with NO additional information (at least I did not find).

O.K. I decided to upgrade BIOS with the DELL A02, for a chance that it might be a newer version.

Here was the SECOND PROBLEM – the procedure did NOT go along the DELL instruction, DELL Support technicians did NOT want to look at this deviation, and the XPS-P100c did NOT boot for upgrading, when I tried as best as I could.

The upgrading deviated from the instruction after I downloaded the A02 file to the desktop of another computer (DELL Dimension 8200 with XP).

DELL Instructions: Creating the Diskette from the Download
1) Find the downloaded file on your Desktop. (The file will be an icon with the file name below it.)
2) Double-click the icon that looks like a floppy disk.
3) From the Dell Computer Self-Extracting Diskette Set-1 Diskette window, click the Yes button.
4) Click Setup. A black DOS window appears.
5) Press the ENTER key.
6) Insert the floppy disk into the floppy disk drive and press the ENTER key.
7) Press the Y key and then press the ENTER key to begin copying files. An "End of the diskette set" prompt appears. Press the ENTER key.

However, after I double-clicked the downloaded file icon (Step # 2) the black DOS window appeared immediately and closed automatically in several seconds. On the Desktop appeared several new icons: Autoexec, Compat, Flash, Readme, XPSC_A06, and I downloaded the extracted files together with the original compressed A06 file to a completely BLANK diskette.

I also downloaded the compressed A06 file directly from DELL to a BLANK diskette (in 8200) and clicked it to extract the files to this diskette.

Both diskettes had identical sets of files, and with both the XPS-P100c booting stalled with the message NON SYSTEM DISK OR DISK ERROR. REPLACE AND STRIKE ANY KEY WHEN READY.

I double-checked the XPS-P100c setup and found: Boot sequence: DISKETTE FIRST.

Many thanks for attention and any suggestions.