I dug out my old computer and went to DOS and did the format c: command, now i get "cd rom not supported by bios" (i don't have the original cd rom, replaced it with Imation CD-R), with floppy boot up disk i can get it to start the recovery cd rom, but it errors out with "PKUNZIP: (e09) can't find m:*.paq" but they are on the recovery cd, any help would be great, spent way too much time on this thing already

Regards,

Mark

**additional info to previous post**
the computer worked fine prior to doing the "format c:" command, i just wanted it to run as fast as possible, going to use it just to surf the web.

Regards,

Mark

Is this a Laptop? If so it would have been helpful for you to state that.

sorry! it is NOT a laptop, HP Pavilion 366mhz celeron/64mb ram

Regards,

Mark

"spent way too much time on this thing already". Do you think this will make folks here move faster?

The restore disk you are using appears to have been zipped using PKZIP. That is not a self extracting format.

There could be many reasons for the message CDrom not supported by BIOS. If you ARE reading something from the CD drive then the BIOS must be seeing it.

"Do you think this will make folks here move faster?" No, just wanted to indicate that I tried many different avenues prior to posting an asking for help...

"If you ARE reading something from the CD drive then the BIOS must be seeing it." I agree...The error message "PKUNZIP: (e09) can't find m:*.paq" indicates it is looking in the m drive, maybe my cd rom isn't addressed as m? when i access the recovery disk and select the recovery option, it doesn't seem to try to access the cd rom, just says "PKUNZIP: (e09) can't find m:*.paq"

Regards,

Mark

If you want to narrow things down a bit boot to the floppy disk you are using and when at the command prompt A: type - dir
This will show you what is on that floppy disk. If PKUNZIP or anything resembling that is not on that disk then you must be reading the CD. Try changing the drive letter when at the A; prompt. Start with D: and go up one by one until you stop getting the message invalid drive. Then type - dir/p. The p is so the whole list of files dowsn't scroll by. Tap the spacebar to advance one screen. Don't really know how you are supplse to start the restore process.

One other thing, all available drives should show during the POST at startup.

how do i access DOS? i pressed f8 during startup, but it doesn't go to a DOS prompt...also, i have a win98 boot floppy disk, but it just says "invalid system disk", it definitely is trying to read the floppy, i've tried several different boot disks from bootdisk.com and i did unzip them to a floppy drive.

Regards,

Mark

When using the Win98 boot disk you may have multiple choices. do not choose to install Win98. Instead select start computer with CD rom support. That should evenually take you to the A: prompt.
If I misundstood and you never saw a screen with choices like I described then you are not booting to the floopy disk.
Enter the BIOS screens by tapping del continously when first starting the computer. Set the boot order to boot to first device = Floppy, second = CD, third = HDD0. Save and exit. Be sure your boot floppy is inserted. If the floppy light goes on but the drive doesn't boot to the floppy then your boot floppy is defective.

my boot settings are: 1. removable devices, 2. cd rom, 3. hard drive, 4. network boot...when i have the floppy in, it definitely is trying to read it, but still says invalid sys. disk, i've tried 3 separate floppys (2 were brand new) and 3 different win98 boot files...pressing f1 while booting up gets me into setup, ctrl+a gets me into BIOS, but i don't know how to get into DOS, f8 doesn't work

Regards,

Mark

Boot up with the Win98SE boot floppy and use FDISK, option 4 to check C: for formatting and if it is set to ACTIVE.

Answer yes to Large Disk Support.

If not, correct with FDISK. Partition and format as required, then reboot with Floppy, select Start with CDROM support.

At the A:\ type, Sys C:, hit Enter. Should see SYSTEM TRANSFERED. (SYS C: loads generic CDROM drivers and system files to HDD.)

If so, reboot with HP System Recovery CD and follow on-screen directions.

Sometimes HP identifies the CDROM as Drive M:. This should not cause problems if you let the CD do it's job, but you may need it if you need to load other files from another CD before setup is finished installing the OS.

There is nothing to learn from someone who already agrees with you.

Are you copying boot files to the floppy disk as they are? You need to unzip them to the floppy disk.
Don't you have a setting for floppy as one of the boot choices. Removable devices may mean USB.
There is no DOS on a computer without an operating system. DOS is an operating system. A command prompt is what you are trying to get to.
You haven't said if you satched the POST screens to see if the CD drive is identified there.

Dumbob, I downloaded and unzipped the win98se and made a floppy boot up disk, i put it in, and rebooted, with no cd in the drive, and it just goes to invalid disk. I rebooted 3 times with the same result. The floppy is clearly trying to be read, as the light comes on and i can hear the heads trying to read the disk.

OtheHill, I am unzipping the files to a floppy drive, however, this morning I was not. I do not have a setting for floppy as one of the boot choices. Here is a list of scsi id numbers, 0-3 say 'no device', 4 says 'imation cd-r imr080020, 5 & 6 say 'no device' and 7 says 'aha-2930c' (scsi host adapter), when i select #4 it says 'not a disk drive'

How would I 'satch the POST screens to see if the CD drive is identified there'?

when i boot up with the recovery cd, it says "cd rom not initialized", then goes onto the recovery menu

Regards,

Mark

"pressing f1 while booting up gets me into setup, ctrl+a gets me into BIOS"

What's the difference? The F1 key *should* get you into the BIOS.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...

thanks for the link Jam, I could not select the advanced options on the recovery disk before, but i tried the windows key on the keyboard and that worked, so now I have a dos prompt of D:\>...now i am going back to previous posts and will try the dos commands recommended by others...will be back!

Regards,

Mark

OK, I got to DOS prompt, apparently my HD is now my D drive, my floppy is my B drive and fails to read the disk, not sure what the CD drive is, but A: fails also, I am now at FDISK, i selected large disk support, but now i have 4 options,
1. create dos partition or logical dos drive
2. set active partition
3. delete partition or logical dos drive
4. display partition information
which one should i do?

Regards,

Mark

You need to enter the BIOS screens and change the floppy drive in the drive configuration area. You no doubt have a 3.5" 1.44MB floppy drive and you want it configured as A:. You also want to have none for the B:.

Option 4 will only display the current Status of your HDD. Whether it is partitioned, what file System you are using, (Fat16-Fat32) and if the primary Partition, C:\ is set as Active, and any additional partitions that may exist.

This step makes no changes, just allows you to check disk Partitioning and status. Use Escape to exit FDISK.

Your System (Primary) Partition should be C:\ not D:\ and floppy should be A:\. I believe B:\ drive was reserved for 5 1/4 floppies on older machines.

The drive settings can be accessed from the Bios-Setup screens.

I'm wondering if your CMOS battery has gotten weak during sorage. Wouldn't hurt to replace if you do not know when it was last replaced. The CMOS battery is on the Motherboard, it's Silver, bout the size of a (US)Quarter.

The Invalid System Disk messages are probably due to the machine accessing the wrong Drives. Or it could be that your previous formating did no good because of Drive errors.

Correct Drive errors before you proceed.

There is nothing to learn from someone who already agrees with you.

Forget all that, check out this link,

http://www.onecomputerguy.com/insta...

Check the CMOS battery, check the Bios Settings,then follow the instructions that fit your situation. Follow the directions exactly.

There is nothing to learn from someone who already agrees with you.

ok...i am now able to boot up using the floppy disk downloaded from www.onecomputerguy.com...but still can't see my cd rom drive...error says:

"device driver not found: 'mscd001'
no valid cdrom device drivers selected"

I suspect since I changed the original cd rom out with an imation cdr 8x20, that it is not compatible with the cd drivers on the start up disk...and i got rid of the old cd rom drive, not sure what to do at this point

thankyou all for your help, i'm open to any more suggestions. I have the driver for the imation cdr but it is in application form, not sure how to get it into DOS

Regards,

Mark

" i'm open to any more suggestions"

..find a different hobby ?

"...find a different hobby ?"

i am taking that into serious consideration

Regards,

Mark

Use the boot floppy from bootdisk.com. The CD-ROM drive letter will be "R"

Report Offensive Follow Up For Removal

start computer with floppy, select START COMPUTER WITH CDROM SUPPORT. At the A:\ type "sys C:\".( No quotes, space between Sys and C:\.) Hit enter. This will copy generic CDROM DOS drivers to HDD.

You should get the message, SYSTEM TRANSFERED.

Remove floppy and start with OS CD IN CD DRIVE.

HP Restore disks should be Bootable and provide the directions to restore your System.

Post back with EXACT MESSAGES, Ver Batim

The drivers you have for the Imation CDR are not important at this point, unless you have one Specifically intended for use in DOS. The Boot Floppy has generic drivers that should work to get the os installed.

Just in case, post the Model# & serial # for the Imation CDR.

Just a hint, failing to take all the steps recommended by the people trying to assist you will surely lead to failure. There ain't no shortcuts.

There is nothing to learn from someone who already agrees with you.

"start computer with floppy, select START COMPUTER WITH CDROM SUPPORT. At the A:\ type "sys C:\".( No quotes, space between Sys and C:\.) Hit enter. This will copy generic CDROM DOS drivers to HDD."

No it won't. "sys c:" will only enable the hard disk to be bootable unto itself. There are ~NO~ CDROM drivers copied with this measure.

Dumbob, please don't live up to you user name here. Be sure of the advice you provide before you post it. You could get people into serious trouble with bad advice. (Not in this instance, but.....)

Check out the "Howtos" at the left of this page.

It's a good day when you learn something

Your #12 indicates your cdrom is a SCSI. The typical bootdisk will attempt to load 3 different cdrom drivers--IDE, Mylex and Bus Logic SCSI and Adaptec SCSI. Only one of those will be accepted. Yours should accept the Adaptec SCSI driver.

Some homemade bootdisks will drop the SCSI drivers as those drives are hardly ever used. That may be the problem with your bootdisk. If you post back the contents of config.sys on the bootdisk we can tell if that's the case.

Also you need to go into your SCSI card utilites and see if you can make the cdrom bootable. I'm pretty sure the 'cdrom' in the bios boot order isn't meant to include a SCSI cdrom.

Or, in the bios boot order, change 'cdrom' to SCSI. That might work too.

Dan,

I suppose I could be wrong in exactly how the CDROM drivers get loaded from the Boot Disk. That wouldn't surprise me totally, however, rather than being insulting and discrediting my advice, you could just simply point out the discrepancy to the OP and myself. Then your "good day" line might have some meaning.

Neither I, nor the OP really need to know EXACTLY how the Drivers get loaded from the Boot Disk. The important point is that they do get loaded in the process and should, with maybe the exception of the OP's SCSI CD Drive, (if that's what it is), make the CD drive available.

Have a NICE day.

There is nothing to learn from someone who already agrees with you.

Dumbob said "start computer with floppy, select START COMPUTER WITH CDROM SUPPORT. At the A:\ type "sys C:\".( No quotes, space between Sys and C:\.) Hit enter. This will copy generic CDROM DOS drivers to HDD.

You should get the message, SYSTEM TRANSFERED.

Remove floppy and start with OS CD IN CD DRIVE.

HP Restore disks should be Bootable and provide the directions to restore your System."

All this worked great, until I rebooted with the boot disk out and just the HP recovery cd in, then I get:
A bootable CD rom is detected in your cd rom drive
0. default entry
1. bob test

I select 0 and get "your cdrom drive is now assigned 'a' and the previous 'a' is now 'b', then i get "press any key to continue" with an HP pavilion screen, that takes me to "recovery options" where i choose 'recover', then 'recover only' then it doesn't even try to read the cd rom, it just errors out and says "pkunzip: can't find: m:*.paq", i know HP usually assigns the cdrom drive as M, but it is 'A' now according to dos...also, when i select the Bob test, it says:
"Adaptec SCSI BIOS V1.32
PowerIDE! ATAPI/IDE CD-ROM
Device Driver version 2.40S
CD-ROM Initialization fails
Your cd-rom drive is not supported by BIOS"

Instead of the original cd-rom, i have an "Imation CD-R IMR080020" installed (no, i do not have the old cd rom, otherwise I'd probably be done!! haha). if anyone gives directions in DOS, plz be specific, i am not proficient in DOS....at all. Thanks Everyone!!

Regards,

Mark

I think the OP came up with SCSI when trying to set the boot order. Kind of doubt this is a SCSI drive. HP Pavilion 366/64.

Since they were only minutes apart, I think OtheHill missed your previous post where you gave the model #. It is a SCSI drive.

It looks like the 'not supported' message is coming from the bios on the SCSI card and not the bios on the motherboard. Or if your SCSI is on-board it's being generated by the on-board adaptec bios. Is the data cable connecting the cdrom attached to a plug-in card or directly to the motherboard?

I don't know much about SCSI. If possible check the SCSI card's documentation. It may just be a problem with the termination.

But since it seems to at least partially read the cd maybe there's a problem with the burner or the cd. It looks like the recovery CD is assigning a: as the cdrom drive letter. From the recovery menu is there an option to exit to dos? If so, do that and type dir a:\ and enter. That should give a directory listing of the files on the cd. Or, if there's a hardware problem it'll give an error message. Although even a successful DIR listing is not a guarantee that everything's OK.

You could also try reading the cd in another computer. Again an error message would indicate a problem with the cd.

If it turns out the burner is bad I think you're better of replacing it with an IDE drive rather than another SCSI.

Dumbob,

I wasn't being insulting towards your advice. I had to discredit it as it was wrong.

"... just simply point out the discrepancy to the OP and myself."

Which is what I did. I still stand with my statement; "Be sure of the advice you provide before you post it. You could get people into serious trouble with bad advice. (Not in this instance, but.....)"

I've seen people wreck their machines based upon bad (malicious in some cases, not yours) advice.

"I suppose I could be wrong in exactly how the CDROM drivers get loaded from the Boot Disk."

Take it as a learning experience, not a "dig". I certainly did not mean to offend, just ~direct~, based upon my experience.

"Neither I, nor the OP really need to know EXACTLY how the Drivers get loaded from the Boot Disk."

Well, how to get them loaded seems to be an issue here, don't you think?

"The important point is that they do get loaded in the process...."

Again, no they don't. (In the process you outlined.)

It's a good day when you learn something

Please my I have a go at this ?

Go into BIOS and ensure the floppy and hard drive are recognised.

Download the self-extracting W98SE OEM Boot Disk from http://www.bootdisk.com.

Boot up the PC from floppy and ensure the C: hard drive is formated, ensure this by at the A: prompt type FDISK and press ENTER.

Providing the C: drive has a valid and active C: partition then ESC back to A: prompt.

Type SYS C: press ENTER, remove floppy and reboot, you should be at an C: prompt.

Is this working so far ? though using an IDE CD drive would be easier.....

Walter Mitty (and everyone else),

all or your steps work. but when i input the HP recovery cd and restart without the floppy it says:
a bootable cdrom is detected in your cdrom drive...

"the boot sections on your bootable cdrom are:
0. default entry
1. bobtest" (if i select bobtest, it says cdrom is not supported by BIOS)

i choose default entry and...
"your cdrom drive is now assigned as drive a: . the original drive a: has become drive B:."

"starting windows 98....
poweride! atapi/ide cdrom device driver vers. 2.40s
cdrom initializatioin fails"

then it shows me the HP paviion recovery cd screen

"press any key to continue"

"recover"
"recover only"
now it is supposed to read the cdrom and recover windows, but it goes to this error:
"pkunzip: (e09) can't find: m:*.paq"

what doesn't make sense to me is the cdrom was given the drive letter A but the last error indicates it is looking for it to be M. also, the recovery cd is readable in my laptop and is full of *.paq files.

to summarize the problem:
i started with a working 366mhz/64mb HP pavilion 4450 that froze up once in a while, so I thought i'd reformat and reload windows, now I am getting what i stated above...the only thing i swapped out was the original cdrom and replace with a cdr (imation cd-r imr080020). but this device worked in this computer prior to reformatting it, infact i used it to backup my data files. I hope this helps, i've been as specific as I can be.

Regards,

Mark

I suggest you look at that recovery CD in a different computer to see what is actually on it.

"starting windows 98....
poweride! atapi/ide cdrom device driver vers. 2.40s
cdrom initializatioin fails"

The recovery CD is looking for an IDE attached CD Drive!

Yeah I think you're right. What threw me is poweride is an adaptec utility so I thought the message was coming from the adaptec SCSI card.

I think what's happening is the recovery cd is booting OK but it's attempting to load an IDE cdrom driver called FDATACD.SYS. That's where the "poweride! atapi/ide cdrom device driver vers. 2.40s" comes from. The driver line specifies the cdrom letter as M:. But since there's no IDE cdrom, the driver can't load and there's no M: drive.

Then PKUNZIP runs and tries to find the M: drive, which isn't there, and then gives the error message.

If there's a way to redirect pkunzip to the a: drive then it should work OK. Or you could jury-rig a bootable cd with SCSI cdrom drivers that contains all the other files on the recovery cd.

Or, get an IDE cdrom. You'd only need it temporarily to do the recovery. Then you could remove it.

what is the difference between an IDE and SCSI CDROM? Is it just the physical connection? If so, where would I connect and IDE drive to?

BTW...a friend gave me a Windows 2000 disk this morning and I popped it in, restarted the computer and it installed within about 2 hours, error free, so I'm running Windows 2000 professional now. Thanks to everyone for all their help, I learned a lot during this experience.

Regards,

Mark

Well, the main difference you'd notice is an IDE drive has a 40-pin connection and the SCSI drive (at least your cdrom) has a 50-pin connection.

Your motherboard will have 2 IDE ports on it. It may also have a SCSI port. If not, the SCSI port will be an add-on card.

I'd appreciate it if you could look through that recovery disk and email me the FDATACD.SYS file. It's a newer version than I could find on the internet.

So are you going to stay with Win2000?

"So are you going to stay with Win2000?"

Yes, as long as it seems to run well, no errors yet...besides, i tried to put the win98 recovery disk in and I get the same error as before, can't find m: *.paq.

Regards,

Mark

Yeah, the recovery disk was made to work with an IDE cdrom. Can you find the fdatacd.sys file on it?

mxhorva.

I see you've gone to Win2000 Pro, probably a good move if it works as is.

Don't get rid of the HP recovery CD, it could be useful for someone else. I see lots of Posts looking for Lost Restore CD's. BTW, HP Restore CD's usually cover a range of Model numbers. May be printed on the CD.

Here's a link that describes making a Reinstall CD from a Restore CD. It does require CD Burning capability, but it simplifies the reinstall.

http://www.easydesksoftware.com/rec...

I'm wondering if the HP CD may be damaged, causing this problem. Moot point now though.

Glad to hear you got your System Up & running. Did Win2000 Pro identify the CD Drive as SCSI?

DB

There is nothing to learn from someone who already agrees with you.

Makes sense that Win2000 would install effertlessly on a SCSI drive. When you first start the 2000 install there are quite a number of SCSI drivers installed. They are native to 2000. Probably not many or any in Win98.

OtheHill, (& all)

yeah, makes sense now that it's working and I understand the difference between SCSI an IDE...but after further review, can't get sound from my sound card, plugged in speakers (of course) and downloaded driver "ripnaw2k" & "camhsf2k" & "rip417na" and none of them work...says it should work for SMART MODEL 90079 Sound Card & WIN2K, but it does not, tried to get driver off of the HP recovery disk, but that doesn't work either...Plus webpages that run flash (like pbskids.org) are running slow, there is only 64meg of memory in it, so i'm thinking of buying a new sound card and some memory...anybody have any suggestions as to what kind? obviously this system is not worth investing much money into, heading to best buy tomorrow to check on prices.

Regards,

Mark

If you have a computer flea market by you that would be the place to look. I will defer to someone with a better memory for the exact RAM and what type of expansion slots would be on your MBoard.

Answers to all your Memory questions here;

http://www.crucial.com/

You don't have to purchase memory from them, but you can get the info you need to loacate it elsewhere.

A local computer repair shop might be a good source. once you find out what you need.

HP support should be able to provide some info;

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...

Unless your Recovery CD included support for Win2000, the drivers may no longer work.

Did you notice that the Smart90079 is a Combo Sound/Modem Card?

Try going into ADD/Remove Programs to see if the original driver is listed. If so remove the original driver, then go into device manager and remove the Sound/Modem Card and reboot.

You'll need to know where your new driver is located so you can direct windows to the new driver when it redetects the Card. Don't let windows automatically install the driver.

Be sure to read the install instructions for the new driver from the download site. That is a fairly common Combo Card for older Pavillions. If it worked before it should now.

There is nothing to learn from someone who already agrees with you.

hey i got down the old PC down yesterday i was deleting some old files and i think i might have deleted something important so now when i go to turn my computer on at the bootup it keeps telling me "invalid system"
someone PLEASE help

sarah

Kaby, it's probably best to start a new thread on this. This one's kinda old and not going to be viewed by very many. Go to the upper left part of this page and under 'general forums' choose your OS and then start a new thread there.

"I" saw it. ;>)

Follow DAVEINCAPS lead. He's right.

It's a good day when you learn something