"Invalid System Disk"

[LunaNox]

All right... update:

Went through the whole "start comp. without CDROM support"

and then the screen went black. There was nothing on the screen and we couldn't press enter or type in anything.

Solution?

 

[LunaNox]

Since no one has responded to this am I to guess that I'm totally screwed? :sigh:

Well, thanks anyway guys. You have helped me out more than any other forum.

 

[chesman]

ok man, so your floppy drive is dead? wel first of all try replaceing it with a known working one.

and then once you know the floppy is working do the following:

1: make win98 boot disk the OEM one
2: insert floppy into floppy drive (make sure floppy is first in boot order in your bios)
3:insert the win98 cd in the cd-rom
4:boot computer, when the win98 setup menu pops up, pick the 'start win98 with cd-rom supprt' option
*it will load up a bunhco f drivers and what not and create the ram drive with the nessacary utilities so that you can install the win98 OS
5: once you are at the a:/ prompt type format c:
say yes, and you WILL LOSE EVERYTHING ON THE DRIVE, so beware if u want to keep anything somehow.
6: once formatted, type 'setup' at the prompt and the win98 setup will begin from the cd-rom
7:follow the steps to installing the OS and you should be fine

 

[LunaNox]

All right... so if by taking out a floppy drive that we know works, will that for some reason ruin the drive when trying to put it back into the computer that works??

We thought about doing that, but were so scared it would ruin the computer that works.

 

[chesman]

Nope, the working drive will not break in the non-working computer as far as i know, i dont see any possible thing that could make it do this.

But even by chance that you kill it, which is highly unlikly, they are VERY cheap to buy. So dont sweat it, go mad, take it out and put her in the broken computer, and follow the steps i listed above, should work out fine for you. if not post here and we will see what to do from there

 

[LunaNox]

thanks so much. Hopefully this will work. Now we just have to get around his mom. She wasn't too happy about the idea of taking apart a good computer to fix an old one.

 

[chesman]

im glad to hear it, well just post what happens, good or bad, id like to know

 

[LunaNox]

Update:

So we took the A drive out of his computer that works, and plugged it into the Compaq. This did nothing.

We still recieved the same error messages.

Does that basically mean it's a dead comp?

 

[dannnyjos]

Hey man, all this is getting you nowhere. This problem is not too complex, but it's kind of hard to post questions on a forum and expect a simple answer when you are not really familiar with computer hardware. I would suggest that instead of posting your questions here, you try to look for some one who can help you in real time. Try to find a "Tech" chatroom online. I'm sure that it will speed things up a lot. Anyways, if you're still interested, my MSN messenger name is "dannnyjos". Don't misinterpret what I said, I mean, this forum is great, but you need to have at least some minimum knowledge on computers in order for other people to assist you. Ok man, hope this helped.

 

[LunaNox]

well then. I actually thought these people were quite helpful. They responded quite quickly. Unfortunetly I don't have MSN so I can't communicate with you.

Are you saying you have a solution different than what was posted here?