Please Help! I have a Compaq Presario 5140 desktop that was given to me. It was running Win 98 when my husband wanted to upgrade to XP. It didnt seem to take so I believe it was still 98 on the computer... Anyway, the computer was restarted after that failed attempt several times(and still ran 98). Then we decided to get online with it and had to have someone come out with their install disk for the cable modem (to run through a USB port) and when he restarted the computer The error message "invalid system disk replace disk and press any key" or something like that occured. There is no disk in the drive. I have since tried entering setup... and looking for a boot sequence to change, but cannot find that in setup, and no other keys work to get me into bios.... Also using a startup disk will not make the error message go away. I have tried for XP and 98. The floppy drive does boot and attempt to read whatever I put in, but nothing seems to boot up the computer. Before I trash this computer does anyone have any idea what happened and/or how to fix it? It ran great before this happened!!! thanks! Shawna

Undertake a Repair Install of W98: http://www.windowsreinstall.com/#me... Are you using W98 Second Edition ? you will need SE for the Cable Modem USB Drivers. As to XP you ideally need a PIII 500mhz CPU, 256MB mem and 20GB hard drive as the very bare minimum, you did not list your specs..

Possibly the" boot-sequence has been changed and the options allowed as a result do not include or allow either the floppy - or the hard-drive itself. It would be useful to access the bios and see what that boot-sequence is - and change/correct if necesary... re' bios access: This snippet from various archives "out"there"... "...If the hidden setup partition has not been tampered with, press F10 when a white square flashes at top right of the screen. Else boot on a setup floppy..." Try F10 as soon as the usual blank cursor appears (top left?) on the black/start-up screen. http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/... is the support-page for this model. You can access all the manuals etc. for it there - and they will include (or ought to) how to access bios and check/change settings - restoring to defaults if needs-be. Certainly do not "trash" the kit; it is more than likely recoverable...; just a little time/effort to untangle what "they" dun when "they" were involved... And in truth if "they" caused the problems... "they" ought to have known what "they" dun - also resolved it?

That computer is not setup to run XP, You will have to go back to Win 98 ..

Echo re' XP etc... But current problem is the "invalid system disk message..." and can't get beyond it via a"any"(?) boootable disk? 'Til that's resolved...?

"It would be useful to access the bios and see what that boot-sequence is - and change/correct if necesary..." I agree. "The floppy drive does boot and attempt to read whatever I put in,..." Ensure the floppy is set as the first boot device. (Usually only severe hardware problems will prevent you from doing this.) Download this Win98SE Boot Disk* and boot the machine with it, choosing "Without CDROM support" (not needed here). When you get to the A:\> prompt, type in; sys c: and hit ENTER. You should see "System transferred". Remove the floppy and attempt a restart/reboot. If 98 is still there, the machine should boot into it. Post back with your results and any further questions. * The above bootdisk image file is a self extracting file and has to be executed (run) from a running Windows machine in order to create the actual startup diskette. (This image file produces the same bootdisk which 98SE creates.) This downloaded image file will format the floppy disk, write the files to the disk, then verify the file write, so it'll take a minute or three to create the bootdisk. Ensure the floppy drive is set as the first boot device in the bios. NOTE: When you boot a machine with this boot floppy, it creates a RAMDRIVE in system memory to contain DOS system tools. Thus it will move your "normal" CDROM device/drive letter "up" one level. (If your CDROM is normally E: it will be F: when booting with this bootdisk.) The path to the found CDROM will be set with the bootfiles however, so entering A:\>f:\setup is the same as entering A:\>setup at the A:\> prompt. There is no need to include the cdrom drive letter. The CDROM device letter will be assigned near the end of the floppy boot process, right after MSCDEX is loaded. It's a good day when you learn something

Just take out the floppy disk then reboot as all computers will get that error message if a floppy is left in the floppy drive.