Invalid System Disk

Dell Dimension 4100
Windows Me

Hello,

I am looking at a friends computer that gets an Invalid System Disk error on startup.
There are no floppy or CD disks in either the floppy or CD-Rom drive. I changed the boot order
in the bios to go directly to the hard disk, same error message. I changed it again to boot from the
floppy and made a Win Me boot up disk and it bypassed the disk and I got the same error message.
I checked to make sure that all the cables were tight and they were, I swapped out the ribbon cable
for a new one, same error. I unplugged the ribbon cable and the power and hooked them up to a
spare hard drive I had with Win 98 installed and it booted right up. I suspect that the hard drive that
has to be at least 4 years old is bad. Any feedback would be appreciated. I don't want to suggest
buying a new computer if I am missing something here and the drive is good. I am not familiar with
Win Me as I went from 98 SE to XP. She has no recovery disk, if there is one for ME, I don't know.

Thanks
Ken

hi ken545, when you poke around in the bios, does it see that the drive is there? you could remove the drive and set the jumpers to slave and install in another computer and see if its recogonized, should show in explorer if its good.

Hey Shelf life, How are you doing, thanks for the reply, yes its a Quantum Fireball and it is showing up in the bios. I think I will try installing it in my other system and see what happens, didn't think about doing that, I may get to it tomorrow, I will post back with an update. Ken

hi ken545,

doing good. maxtor has a diagnostic utility you might want to try:

http://www.maxtor.com/portal/site/Maxtor/m…s&downloadID=22

Shelf Life,

Thanks for the heads up on the Maxtor Diagnostic Utility, I have it on a floppy in case I ever need it in the future.

I ran the advanced test and it looks like the drive past, I am running the Burn in test now, it could take an hour or so.

When I booted from the Win Me Boot Startup Disk, I got errors on startup that COMMAND.COM is corrupt or missing and that there are about 6 files missing or corrupt in CONFIG.SYS.

The Burn In test just completed and it said it past that there were no errors.

This gal may have (I hope ) the Win Me recovery disk, some people don't keep the things they need. A gal I work with went to Compusa and bought Norton Anti-Virus 2005 about 6 months ago for a cost of $49 , after she installed it, she through the disk in the garbage, somewhere along the line things got corrupted and they told her to reinstall Norton…..Now what ??

From the floppy, it won't let me run scanreg, or scanreg /mbr it is saying that the file is missing or corrupt. If she calls back and has the recovery disk, I will try that route.

I will definitly post back and give you an update,

Thanks for your help,

Ken

hi ken545, looks like the hd is ok. if you cant restore the missing/corrupt files you could set the drive to slave, install as a secondary drive in another computer, pull off anything that needs to be saved. put it back in original computer as master then reformat/reinstall OS.

Shelf Life, Another funny update, I kept gettng the INVALID SYSTEM DISK error when trying to boot from the floppy with a Win Me boot disk, so I bypassed the floppy and hooked up the cables to a known good floppy I had, it booted up with the boot floppy to an A: prompt, so at this point I figure the floppy is bad, so I remove it to install my good one and out of her floppy falls a kids hair clip with a plastic flower on it. I have a few feelers out for a ME recovery disk, if it don't pan out, I will take your advice about the Slave drive and at least I can salvage some of her documents. Thanks for all your advice, Ken

If you take the floppy out.. you will not get that error. Invalid system disk error = floppy in A:\ … remove floppy… reboot (ok i am not going to delete my reply here… if you will notice it appears as though I did not read the thread before I posted.. however.. this time particularly….Only the original post in this thread showed up. My apollogies to shelf life as well…dunno how that happened but its twice tonight that only the original post has showed up in a thread I have veiwed. .. strange)