invalid system disk

  • Thread starter Thread starter Lynsey
  • Start date Start date
L

Lynsey

Hi,

Ive tried to put my old 14Gb hard disk drive in to my dads computer for him
instead of his 4Gb one. (I know it works in his computer because it was in
there at one point and worked fine). I get the message 'invalid system disk'
whenever i try to start it up - then i just have to switch it off.
From memory windows xp is on it, and windows 98 is on his curent hdd. There
are no disks in the cd-rom or floppy drive. Why is this message coming up
and how do i get rid of it? Would like to formt it anyway and do a new
install of XP.

Thanks,
Lynsey.
 
Ive tried to put my old 14Gb hard disk drive in to my dads computer for him
instead of his 4Gb one. (I know it works in his computer because it was in
there at one point and worked fine). I get the message 'invalid system disk'
whenever i try to start it up - then i just have to switch it off.
From memory windows xp is on it, and windows 98 is on his curent hdd. There
are no disks in the cd-rom or floppy drive. Why is this message coming up
and how do i get rid of it? Would like to formt it anyway and do a new
install of XP.
Click to expand...

Put the Windows XP installation disk in the CD-Rom drive and boot
from the CD-Rom.
(That is, if you really want to wipe all data currently on this
disk.)
 
Lynsey said:
Hi,

Ive tried to put my old 14Gb hard disk drive in to my dads computer
for him instead of his 4Gb one. (I know it works in his computer
because it was in there at one point and worked fine). I get the
message 'invalid system disk' whenever i try to start it up - then i
just have to switch it off.
From memory windows xp is on it, and windows 98 is on his curent hdd.
There are no disks in the cd-rom or floppy drive. Why is this message
coming up and how do i get rid of it? Would like to formt it anyway
and do a new install of XP.

Thanks,
Lynsey.
Click to expand...


You are putting in your *OLD* hard drive into your father's computers.
That makes it sound like you have a new hard drive in your computer.
That also probably means that you have your licensed copy of Windows on
your new drive in your computer which means you are not allowed to
distribute an illegal copy that was left on the old hard drive. Rather
than give your father a polluted hard drive containing illegal software,
boot using the Windows install CD - the *SECOND* and separate legal
licensed copy for his computer - and use its tools during setup to
delete the partition and create a new one (so you wipe and rewrite the
partition table), format it, and then do a fresh install. Problem
solved.
 
Hi,

Thanks for the input everyone.
Problem is, that this message comes on instantly when i boot the computer
up - and it wont even let me enter the bios to change to 'boot from cd-rom'.

i will try with a startup disk though and see if that helps.

And no worries with the 'illegal software' - i only want to give him the
larger hard disk - tits going to get formatted when (if) it will atually
ever gets started up!

Cheers everyone!,
Lynsey.
 
Lynsey said:
Hi,

Thanks for the input everyone.
Problem is, that this message comes on instantly when i boot the computer
up - and it wont even let me enter the bios to change to 'boot from
Click to expand...
cd-rom'.

If you get "invalid system disk" then the BIOS has already posted and you
missed your chance to get in... YOUR TOO SLOW!

: )

That error means that it can't find the boot sector or boot partition. Most
likely detected wrong in your BIOS. Either the BIOS is set right for that
drive or the two computers format the hard drive differently so the geometry
is different and the sectors aren't where they are expected to be when you
move the drive to another PC.

Could also mean you forgot to take the floppy disk out of your drive.
 
Hi,

Ive tried to put my old 14Gb hard disk drive in to my dads computer for him
instead of his 4Gb one. (I know it works in his computer because it was in
there at one point and worked fine). I get the message 'invalid system disk'
whenever i try to start it up - then i just have to switch it off.
From memory windows xp is on it, and windows 98 is on his curent hdd. There
are no disks in the cd-rom or floppy drive. Why is this message coming up
and how do i get rid of it? Would like to formt it anyway and do a new
install of XP.

Thanks,
Lynsey.
Click to expand...

Get a win98 boot floppy,
http://www.bootdisk.com
and boot to it.
At the prompt type
sys c: and press enter.
This will remake the hard drive partition a system disk and hopefully
let you in.
HTH :)



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