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Invalid media type reading drive c

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Name: Nicolas Pretre
Date: September 9, 1999 at 02:56:00 Pacific
Comment:

Please help, my new PIII is stuck!

When booting, it prompts "non system disk/please insert...". I did boot from the original floppy, went ok, could change to c:, but nothing was possible from there: the message was "invalid media type reading drive c". I could not even reinstall Windows 98. Cmos settings seem ok to me, the hard disk is autodetected and looks fine.

I don't remember booting from everyting but my hard disk ever before this happened.

Please email me, this might be a recurent problem, I don't want to annoy people.

Nicolas Pretre - France



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Response Number 1
Name: graeme
Date: September 9, 1999 at 04:24:18 Pacific
Reply:

If you are running win98 you have probably formated your C drive in FAT32, and booting off a dos disk is FAT16 and you will get exactly the error you are getting.

Try changing you bios to boot from CD forst then load the 98 disc in.....if you have an atpi ide cd rom you will be fine


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Response Number 2
Name: Nicolas Pretre
Date: September 10, 1999 at 01:16:58 Pacific
Reply:

Yes, I have Windows 98 pre-installed. Both diskette and CDROM are therefore original and should fit (when booting from the diskette it says "win98", not "dos". The CDROM is not bootable but I have tried to boot from a bootable CDROM to no end.

Would formatting the disk solve this problem?

N.P.


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Response Number 3
Name: Anoni Moose
Date: October 30, 2000 at 05:23:15 Pacific
Reply:

"invalid media type" usually indicates an unformatted HDD


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Response Number 4
Name: Anoni Moose
Date: October 30, 2000 at 05:25:52 Pacific
Reply:

"invalid media type" usually indicates an unformatted HDD. Format the hard drive


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Response Number 5
Name: John
Date: December 26, 2000 at 12:38:20 Pacific
Reply:

I'm experiencing the same problem, but for a different reason, and have been unable to figure out a solution. I tried (unsuccessfully) to install Mandrake Linux to an extra d: drive left over from installing a larger one. The Linux install fails at a divide by zero error, and my c: drive is now unusable, giving me the "invalid media type" error no matter what I try to do. I'm afraid I'm going to have to format the c: drive and start over.


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Response Number 6
Name: Claude Joye
Date: January 9, 2001 at 14:03:44 Pacific
Reply:

I have got the same message when trying to
partition and format a new PC from scratch. The
boot disc I used was made from an existing system
running with FAT16 partition.
When partioning the new harddisc with the FAT16
system it works fine (up to 2GB). The problem
might come from a boot disc made from a FAT16
system but I'm not sure. What do you guys
think of this?


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