when i turn on system it reads all the system info but i don't get know c: prompt...it goes straight to blank screen and says this.. invalid partition table see the person who had this try reformatting the hard drive and choose wrong messages in fdisk and when they rebooted they got this message invalid partition table... can i correct this problem by just putting a new hard drive in?? see i can't use any utility programs cos can't get a c:\ prompt i can't even get into my cmos settings....i press F-5 and del and all the rest keys that can get into cmos but still can't get into settings so should i just put a new hd or can i fix that hd thats in or will i still get invalid partition table?? thanks for your help

You must tell us more about your computer. give all the numbers you can. like cpu, mem, how old, bios company, ect. ect. I think you just need a boot disk for dos and then fdisk again and then format and then load the files back on and drive should be ok. but you need the numbers. Owen

ok i got 236 and 4mb ram its 1988 mitsuba computer 286 modular BIOS VERION 3.03 Award software inc... thats all i got and i tried bootable disk with FDISK on it and still does same thing... thanks Owen for answering my problem

if it's a regular desktop, you can get to the cmos by pressing 'DEL' when you start it up. from there change the boot up sequence so it starts with the A: first. i do not advise changing the harddisk settings. we still need more info about your pc for us to help you. good luck!

i tried that del and no it didn't work i pressed it and still get invalid partition table... i'm sorry what other info you need?? i'm sorry if i answer questions wrong but i don't know what to put... all i know is what i told you but if you tell me what you need to know then i will try to answer it best i can...thanks all for your help...

Disregard all of the above. You need a hd setup utility (from a bootable floppy). You can get it from the hard drive mfg.'s web site. For Maxtor = MaxBlast, for Western Digital = something or other-I forgot. Anyway, these utilities will set an active partition table, preform diagnostics and/or reformat your hd as necessary. Then just boot using a dos disk...