Invalid system disk?

[snidy]

I got my kids a cheap used computer, I formated the hard drive, reinstalled windows 98se, it seems to install fine, until the first reboot, then I get the error, invalid system disk, and no there's not a floppy disk in. any ideas?

 

[TunaBoo]

make sure in bios IDE0 is set as first boot device.

Then try booting off a floppy and doing a fdisk / MBR wipe.


There is a good chance the HD is dead/on its way

 

[Bozo Galora]

the boot drive must be jumpered as master and the boot partition must be active. go to fdisk and use option 4

 

[bacillus]

I have to agree with TunaBoo on rewriting the MBR although you may want to use sys C: command after the fdisk/mbr command!

 

[Jiggz]

I believe you formatted th HDD without the /s option so basically there's no system files on the boot sector. Boot on the floppy again using the Win98 boot disk and then type sys c:. If you've done the Fdisk /mbr make sure you sys'ed it too just like the preceeding. Reboot and it should work.

 

[Whitedog]

Before you go wiping it :| Run fdisk and see if C is "Active". You may just have to use option two and mark the disk Active.

 

[Commish]

Bah! I should have read the entire message, sorry.

 

[MrBond]

Guys, he installed windows on the drive, it should be booting...

I had a pc once in the shop where it wouldn't store the information for the hard drives in the bios. I'd have to go into the bios and have it reautodetect the drive to get it to boot (got this same error you did). I don't remember how I fixed it, maybe a new cmos battery...

 

[samgau]

I have a machine that would refuse to boot from a 15gb drive... would detect it fine and even install the os..but upon first reboot..nada invalid system disk... took the 15 gb out, replaced it by a 30gb went over the same motions again(plug in/reboot/install os) and the machine was fine.... still puzzles me to this day... it uses an i810 chipset

 

[Bozo Galora]

i will never understand why on this forum, if you escape out of submitting a reply while its saying "contacting so and so" - with hourglass, the damn thing posts anyway.

 

[Bozo Galora]

Windows wont load with out the system files already loaded (/s)
he already stated theres no floopy in drive
he formatted so the drive was detected by bios

that only leaves the jumper, active status, or a corrupted bios (but no checksum error) or the cyl 0, head 0, sector 1 is bad, or he fried HDD on second bootup (or maybe moved cable by accident)

 

[CZroe]

No need for /s unless you only want to boot DOS! Installing windows WILL do the equivalent.
But still try the format /s & see if you can boot to DOS before installing Windows.
Also, a WinME boot disk cannot do /s.

 

[Bozo Galora]

The man loaded Win 98SE, not ME
It would be stupid to be in DOS to format a drive and not put the /s switch also and go on from there

 

[knutp]

This happend to an older computer (k6-2 333) and I formatted the drive, reinstalled windows with no luck. Then I deleted the partitions and remade them. Then formatted and reinstalled all over again. This time it worked.

 

[CZroe]

The man loaded Win 98SE, not ME
It would be stupid to be in DOS to format a drive and not put the /s switch also and go on from there

Except when it does absolutely nothing to help you install or boot Windows. The /S option gives no disc drive access for running the installation. Unless you plan to install from floppies, you'd have to copy the installation files to the drive first AND needlessly reboot to the HDD to install the OS from that boot environment, but it's pointless because you can start the install from the HDD files without rebooting.

 

[tracerbullet]

Wow, I've seen some old thread bumps, but this... might just be the winner at over 11 years!

And I was getting kind of excited that someone was trying to run 98SE again too, dangit.

 

[Chapbass]

Did you forget about this conversation for a little while, CZroe?

 

[CZroe]

Did you forget about this conversation for a little while, CZroe?

For the record, may it be forever known that I was sensible and Bozo Galora's insistence on the /S switch as a fix was silly even though he called anyone not following his suggestion "stupid."

I still think we are (were) dealing with a boot order issue, considering the OP never told us he successfully booted to the drive before formatting it but the system had to see it to allow Windows to install to it.

Using /S only helps that situation so you know you have a bootable volume while restarting and trying different BIOS/CMOS settings without reinstalling Windows over and over.

 

[oynaz]

For a short while I felt like being 20 years again, there.