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hello,
so I reformated the hard drive using DOS on a machine that was running windows 98.
The reason I wanted to reformat and reinstall is because the computer was completely hosed up with virus'.
The drive seemed to reformat rather quickly, and I inserted the install CD for windows XP.... tried to run the set up of the cd through DOS commands, but it said the CD drive didn't exist (note just a few moments before reformating the HD, the cd drive was working just fine).rebooted the computer, and now i get an error saying
"Invalid system disk. replace the disk, then press any key."
how do I get past this and install windows XP from the CD drive? (there is no floppy drive to speak of, i'm guessing that the bootdisk cd i made is not actually bootable. I however, do not know how to make a bootable CD)....
if i need to access the setup and change the main boot disk to the CD drive, how do i do that?
if i don't... what else can i do?Is it possible that i accidentally erased the driver for my CD drive, so it's not recognizing the boot disk I've put in.... how would i reinstall that?
please help! this isn't even my computer, it belongs to a friend I'm house sitting for. I told him I'd reformat and install the new OS while he was away. He comes back on tuesday.
thanks!!
You need to go into cmos/bios setup and set the cdrom as the first boot device--although most bios' usually give a HD/Cdrom boot option when a bootable cd is detected.
Your XP cd should be bootable so you shouldn't need to boot up with anything else. Once it boots up I guess just follow the on-screen directions.
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I checked the BIOS and the order is CD - Floppy - Hard drive. It would not let me change anything.
is there anything specific i need to do in order to make the XP cd boot?
If i just turn on the computer and insert the XP cd (I also tried putting in the xp cd, shutting down, and then restarting with the xp cd already in place), i get the same "Invalid system error...."thanks for your help. I really appreciate it.
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Maybe you need to remove all the partitioning from the hard drive first, then if using W98 re-partition:
http://www.killdisk.com
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;255867
If you want to install XP (seems your aim, though this is the W9x forum) then just boot from the CD and follow prompts, no DOS/WinDOS needed, required or even applicable!
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As long as your cdrom is working and being seen by the bios it should boot from the XP cd. You may want to try it on another computer just to make sure.
I assume the cd is a full version. If it's an upgrade it may not be bootable.
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I checked the model number of the computer and found a list of specs...
http://www.epinions.com/cmhd-Desktops-All-Sony_VAIO_Slimtop_L640/display_~full_specsi think this will run XP fine, as I have another machine that runs at 233mhz, 192mb ram, pentium II and 10gb hard drive that can handle XP.
but... i'm still at a loss of how to get around this error message....
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'Invalid system disk' means it can't find the system files on the drive it's trying to boot from. Often this happens after someone has formatted the hard drive--thereby removing everything including the system files--and then attempting to boot from that hard drive.
If you have a bootable cd in the cdrom (that you've verified it's bootable by checking it in another computer) and the cdrom is set as the first boot device then I'd suspect you have a problem with the cdrom. If the bios doesn't think you have a bootable cd in the cdrom then it will continue on in the boot order by going to the next device. If that's the hard drive and it's empty then you'll get the 'invalid system disk' message.
Also, you say you 'don't have a floppy drive to speak of'. I'm not sure what that means but it may be a good idea to change the boot order to make the floppy the last boot device. You say it wouldn't let you change the order but keep trying as it can be changed.
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i have that error as well. but i have another computer. is it possible to remove the hard disk then put it in a working computer then have it installed a w98 software, then putting it back again in the original computer it came from??
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There wouldn't be any benefit to temporarily swapping the HD. You would still need the 98 cd to reinstall windows. And if you had that, why put the drive in another computer to do what you could just as well do in the original one?
But yes, you can do it that way. Once you put the drive back in the first computer and boot up it will still need the 98 cd to install drivers for all the new hardware it detects in the computer.
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