Desktop

Ask something
Discussion Locked

invalid system disk

0 helpful
6 replies

by elwin9

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.
This board (Zida Tomato Board PG133)will come up with a invalid system disk when there is no disk in A:\. In BIOS everything looks OK, hard drive and CDrom are there everything looks in order. Sometimes when you restart it hangs, now it is stopping on the invalid disk. Boot to floppy and check drive C:\ and it tells you that there is only one file there when in fact it has WIN98 ON IT. I have run microscope9 and the hard drive and board is fine. Spinrite5 has checked the drive with no problems.What do you think?

6 replies

by thechas

Is this a new system, or Hard drive?
If so, did you copy the contents of an old drive onto the new drive?

If so, it is likely that the drive is not seen as bootable.
From the boot floppy, type sys c: and press enter.
The C drive will now be bootable.

If this is a system that was running, and this just started happening.
The first thing to do is check for viruses.
The next thing to do is to make sure that the drive parameters in the BIOS are correct.
Some drives can be set up in different ways in BIOS. If the drive settings are not the same as the ones used when the drive was fdisked, you can have problems simalar to the ones you are seeing.

It is also possible that the CMOS backup battery is getting weak, and the settings are getting corrupted.

by elwin9

No virus, replaced battery and system is 12months old. What is left is there is no windows directory, boot files corrupt. Had to reinstall in Dir0001 just to save programs. All started with a faulty PSU that I replaced. What could have done this to windows?

by meddjay

You say no virus...and you say you replaced cmos battery is that correct? I would try using your windows 98 floppy you made when you installed windows...you did make one right? If not find someone who is running 98 on their computer and either use theirs or make one off of their system, then restart and hold down control button, then start in safe mode and it should help you troubleshoot. Or if you can get to windows...go to start then to run and type in sfc in the run box..have your windows98 cd rom available in case it finds damaged files. The last thing is you may either have a bootsector virus and even though you say you have checked for virus's if you are using say...a floppy you made from before, then the virus would get on floppyand everytime you used floppy it would put itself back on there again! Lastly, your A drive could be going bad. Those were some ideas...hope they help you!

by shanghai sam

I replaced the CPU and got it started, ran it all day. I ran 500repeat system board tests with no errors. Took the PC back to the client, wouldn't start. Then it came up with a can't read c:\ insert system disk. I put their hard drive in another system and got them up and working again. Im still left with the problem to fix. When I removed the CPU, there is a clear liquid I guess from heat transfer compound that has run underneth the CPU. Being silcon it hasn't shorted. I wonder if this is the problem?

This discussion is closed to new replies.