A friedn just brought me her dell p1 laptop. Now bare with me, she's got multiple personalities, I mean 4 or 5 & I'm trying to talk to all at once. When I try to boot her pc, which doesn't have an "A" drive, it keeps saying, "invalid system disk, replace disk & click any key."
any suggestions.?
Thanks,
Maxx

Without a floppy drive you have a serious problem.
Does it have a bootable CD drive?
Does she have the Dell 'Restore' software?

sorry, i was wrong. i found the "A" & CD romm drives in her bag...what a nut case she is.
I'm trying a win98se boot disk but keep getting the same errror message, "Invalid sys disk"

Is it trying to boot from floppy? If not go into CMOS and set to boot floppy first.

Do at least 3 of the personalities have great legs?

M2

If at first you don't succeed, you're about average.

ya a couple do...But it's the personalities that are hard to deal with...lol
I changed the boot to "A" & we've gotten rid of the error message but now it's not doing anything but sit there with the curser flashing. I want to run setup, But how can this be done if I have to remove the floppy so I can incert the CDromm drive.?

Hi Maxx,

If you're lucky, the floppy has what you need.

Try tjis:

sys c:
[enter]

Hopefully, you'll get a "system transferred" msg.

M2

If at first you don't succeed, you're about average.

It sounds like it's trying to read the disk, it's clickin away....But it dosen't for any further then the first screen which reads, " copyright 1985-95 Phoenix tech Ltd" & tells me the specs.

Is that after doing sys c:?

M2

If at first you don't succeed, you're about average.

No, that's after I replace no with a win98se boot disk, it gets as far as I said above & just stops doing anything.

Try the boot disk in a box that's known to be working right. Like the one you're on now.

M2

If at first you don't succeed, you're about average.

http://83.67.55.228/msdosw9x.htm

the boot disk works fine, it's this bloody laptop, i can't get a straight answer outta her as to what she did to it before bringing it to me, other then try to reformat it

it's now telling me outta the blue that the suspend to disk file is absent,??

I would use www.killdisk.com to wipe the hard drive and start afresh..........

killdisk will destroy any of the Dell recovery software on the drive.

thanks bud, but i give up. she's just gonna have to get it fixed on her own, i've wasted more of my Sunday on this pc then i've wanted to.
Thanks again for all your help N time
Yours truly,
Maxx