Invalid System Disk Error

[SunDizzle]

All,
I found a cpu and removed the quantum fireball 10.2at hard drive to put it in my cpu. Got it installed and tried to format c: (the fireball is d and did. I tried to install Win98 got an error message about setup so I decided to install it through MS-DOS. I copied all the files to c: but when I boot my cpu I get the Invalid System disk error message?? So I let it sit there for about 5 minutes, hit a key, and Boom, it reboots to the Win98 Start up Menu. That was when I copied the files and rebooted and, what do you know, I get the Invalid System Disk error??? Any one have a clue?

Please...

[SunDizzle]

I just tried rebooting it again and the damn thing boots to the A:/ prompt? Is it unstable?

Sounds like it has an NTFS partition on the HDD. Use FDISK and see what partitions it has on it.

[SunDizzle]

Evil,
I'm actually in the middle of Win98 setup currently. Somehow I got access so I'm not sure if it's stable yet, I will let you know.

thanks

[SunDizzle]

I'm still getting this error message and I verified that the disk is a primary dos disk in fdisk

[kranich]

Many possible solutions but the easiest, in my opinion, is to boot to a Win 98 boot disk, reformat and then install Windows 98 from the CD (e:\setup.exe). The entire process should take less than an hour verses the many hours you are spending trying to troubleshoot. I do this all the time for customers that are having Win 98 and 95 problems because it takes too long to try to worm through the problem and a clean reformat/install almost always fixes the problems. If you continue to get the same errors then you have to start considering a larger problem- such as a screwed up HD.

[SunDizzle]

thanks man, that's what I did and, be damned, it worked

kudos to you!!

[kranich]

No problem dude- just as a rule of thumb. If you are spending hours and hours trying to troubleshoot something like that just weigh the option of the time spent doing a reformat/reisntall verses all that. Sometimes you gotta bite the bullet and do it. With Win 95/98 it is a breeze but the same principle aplies to Win 2K/XP though it takes longer on average. I do it all the time. Normally I do crossover and save all the drivers to my laptop first just in case.

But is it NTFS, which Win98 can't understand, or FAT or FAT32, which is what 98 knows? If it's NTFS, the installer will get confuzzled.

[SunDizzle]

Not an NTFS, it's only 23gb (1 10 and 1 13) so no.


thanks all once again