Hi, I used FDISK on my hard disk, erased and recreated the primary partition, formatted it (with FORMAT C: /U) and went to put the windows 98SE CD in to put the OS back on my computer. MY CD didn't work!!! I made sure the CD was correctly installed, and nothing worked- so I changed a whole bunch of BIOS Settings, then finally I removed the CD and took the battery outof the motherboard. Now, the battery is back in, the CD is still out, and when I try to boot from a floppy, and even though I have a win98 boot disk in, I get a "Invalid System disk. Please replace and strike any key..." error. How can I boot from a floppy???I made sure all the BIOS defaults are loaded. The BIOS detects my hard disk, and the green light goes on and it tries to load the floppy, but to no avail. The motherboard is an ASUS P5A-B, if that helps. please help, I need this computer!!!!!!!!

did you check the bios to make sure that the floppy drive is the first bootable device? try the same floppy on another machine to make sure the floopy disk is OK.

Alright, calm down, get off the coffee and soda, take a deep breath. First, do you KNOW your Whambox98 CD is bootable? There seems to be a big controversy about this, but all the cd's I have::::: Windows98SE RETAIL versions, whether "full" or "upgrade" do not boot. I have several. I also have several so called OEM cds--full versions that say "For distribution with a new PC only. For product support, contact the man. . .etc etc. These so called OEM cd's WILL BOOT. So, I say again, do you KNOW that your CD (disc) is bootable? Do you KNOW your floppy will boot? Have you tried both of them in a different machine? YOU MUST BE SURE the disc(s) actually work. SECOND: Get into your bios, and find the floppy drive setting, and make sure that it is set correctly, i.e. 1.44 drive. Now set your boot order. If the 500mhz is the machine you're working on, it should be new enough to put BOTH the floppy AND the CDROM in the boot order. It should not matter which is first, whichever you think you may use most. So, either CDROM, floppy, hdd, or floppy, CDROM, or hdd. "SAVE" and "EXIT" the bios, depending on brand/version.

To Budm and "name": First off, thank you. You responded quickly, and, name, you even gave me some free humor, :) Yes, I made sure the floppy was the first bootable device in the BIOS. I did try the floopy on a different machine, and it DIDN'T work. I traded it for a working floppy, and I was in business...sort of. I put in a 98 boot disk, and I got to the A: prompt. It worked with no problems. I then (re)installed my CDROM drive. I set it as master on the secondary IDE channel. After making the necessary changes in the BIOS (i.e. setting the boot order to CDROM,A,C) I started up, then saw the following : Detecting HDD Primary Master: Maxtor 9204164 Detecting HDD Secondary Master: Samsung CD ROM SC-148F so far, so good, then: Floppy Disks Fail (40) Press f1 to continue, DEL to enter settings. I pressed F1. I had a Win 98SE retail CD, then a win 98 retail CD, and I got the same message when I booted: 1. FD 1.44 MB System type - (00) I then tried booting with an OEM CD (A Dell win XP CD, it's all I had) I then saw a different message: No emulation System Type (06) here's my system configuration, if it helps: Disk A: 1.44 M, 3.5 in Primary Master Disk: LBA, mode 4, 20491 MB Secondary Master Disk: CDROM, mode 4

Hi, At this point maybe one of your HDs or CD is tripping up the floppy. Try disconnecting the CD and the slave HD. Boot from floppy. run: fdisk /status and see if your primary partutuin is active. If not, run fdisk and set it active. Then: A:\>sys c: Take the floppy out and boot on the HD. If you get this far, you can quit bothering with the floppy, make a config.sys & autoexec and add the other drives. HTH

hi in bios turn off floppy seek gets rid of the error 40. change your modes to auto also.we have almost similar machines.all mine are set to auto. keltik

Thanks again guys, using your suggestions, I got rid of that floppy 40 error and got the bootup files to my hard drive. MY question is, when I did the A:\> SYS C: the only file that copied over was command.com. If I disconnect the floppy and put in the CD-ROM, how will I load the generic driver for the CD that is on the 98 boot disk (I think it's called something like OAKCD.SYS), and is that the only driver I need to load the CD-ROM??? Much Thanks, Raul