I recently formated the hardrive of a 486 running win 3.1 To my horror the start up disk would not boot the machine .... I think I failed to put the sys files on it. I did manage to a find a disk that would boot it and get to c, from a moderner machine. So Installed windows 3.1. Now on booting .. it tells me Invalid system disk replace the disk and press any key. But I still can access c using the found boot disk. I tryed running fdisk and some other things and get told incorrect ms_dos version. I have the ms_dos disks so I tryed to install it ... it asked me to hit ctrl alt del to restart machine and it would install. Problem being on doing this I get the same old error invalid system disk ..... also while acessing the c and typing win I get a hymem error. So what I have is a hard drive that won't boot. Windows installed but with the wrong version of dos possibly from a moderner system - re boot up disk. Any help much appreciated Stephen G

I have the exact same problem. Please help.

Stephen, You didn't mention any version of DOS. After you format the hard drive you need to install DOS, then windows 3.1. The DOS installation will put all the necessary files on your hard drive. Doug

Boot off the first DOS installation disk - the same version as installed is best - though using any version (the later the better) is possible. Quit the installation and go into FDISK. Set the primary partiion as Active. Remove the floppy and Reboot.

Thanks for the replies ...the version of DOS is 6.22 and I can not boot of the first disk. When I insert the first disk after using my startup disk form another pc.. it tells me to press ctrl alt del to restart and install dos when i do this I get the dredded invalid system disk replace the disk and press any key error and if I reboot with the first DOS disk in it tells me the same thing. I did download a boot up disk and again i got the same error ... so I formated again with all the boot disk stuff copied on to the drive with a format c:\/s hoping to grab the correct system files ect but still no joy !!! Crazy thing is with this other boot disk from the moderner pc I can access the c drive and do a dir and see all on it Getting really baffled but now its a challenge and would really appreciate any more advice ... we can beat this one lol Many thanks Stephen

When you say you downloaded the MS-DOS Boot Disk. What format was it in? ZIP files do not create a valid boot disk. It has to be a Disk Image. (Or some fancy work to make it bootable!) http://www.kewlone.com has a working MS-DOS 6.22 Boot Disk in WinImage Format, You can try.

If you have any more problems you can contact me by email I have a spare set of dos 6.22 i can send you if you wish to pay shipping or I will zip the first disk and send it to you email and tell you how to unzip and reload I have been working on computers for 8 years so been there done that. Hope I helped.