Invalid system disk
 

Howdy:

I've got this old Hewitt Rand 'puter that I'm trying to get running.
It has a 120MHz CPU (unknown make), 16MB RAM, Windows 95 (supposed to
be loaded on drive?). I turn the machine on and it goes through the
POST and then displays all the CPU, hard disk, Plug and Play info and
some stuff about PCI devices.

It then displays this:
External Cache Type : Pipelined BUrst
EDO in DRAM Row(s) : 0

Invalid system disk
Replace the disk, and then press any key

There is no disk in the drives! I've tried starting it up with a Win95
start-up disk, with Win95 CD in CD-ROM, a combination of the two and I
still get to this point only. I've been into the BIOS (American) and
everything seems kosher there. The floppy lites up and you can hear it
accessing the disk, but that's it! If I could get it to a command
promt I would be very happy. Any ideas?

Thanks.

--
The Seabat

"seabat" wrote in message
...
Howdy:

I've got this old Hewitt Rand 'puter that I'm trying to get running.
It has a 120MHz CPU (unknown make), 16MB RAM, Windows 95 (supposed to
be loaded on drive?). I turn the machine on and it goes through the
POST and then displays all the CPU, hard disk, Plug and Play info and
some stuff about PCI devices.

It then displays this:
External Cache Type : Pipelined BUrst
EDO in DRAM Row(s) : 0

Invalid system disk
Replace the disk, and then press any key

There is no disk in the drives! I've tried starting it up with a Win95
start-up disk, with Win95 CD in CD-ROM, a combination of the two and I
still get to this point only. I've been into the BIOS (American) and
everything seems kosher there. The floppy lites up and you can hear it
accessing the disk, but that's it! If I could get it to a command
promt I would be very happy. Any ideas?

Thanks.

OK, two possibilities. First, is the CMOS battery dead? If so, you might
have to replace it and then re-detect or re-program the hard drive settings
in BIOS.

Second possibility is that the hard drive was formatted, and boot sequence
is set to hard drive FIRST. In that case, you will get "invalid system
disk". You won't necessarily be able to boot a floppy disk that way. -Dave

On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 18:53:07 -0500, "Dave C." wrote:


OK, two possibilities. First, is the CMOS battery dead? If so, you might
have to replace it and then re-detect or re-program the hard drive settings
in BIOS.


Replaced the battery. BIOS wouldn't detect hard drive (1.28GB) so
entered info manually. Still no go!

Second possibility is that the hard drive was formatted, and boot sequence
is set to hard drive FIRST. In that case, you will get "invalid system
disk". You won't necessarily be able to boot a floppy disk that way. -Dave


The BIOS boot sequence is set in this order: A, C, CD-ROM.
Still no joy! As usual, my luck is holding.......at zilch!


--
The Seabat

"seabat" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 18:53:07 -0500, "Dave C." wrote:


OK, two possibilities. First, is the CMOS battery dead? If so, you
might
have to replace it and then re-detect or re-program the hard drive
settings
in BIOS.


Replaced the battery. BIOS wouldn't detect hard drive (1.28GB) so
entered info manually. Still no go!

Second possibility is that the hard drive was formatted, and boot
sequence
is set to hard drive FIRST. In that case, you will get "invalid system
disk". You won't necessarily be able to boot a floppy disk that
ay. -Dave


The BIOS boot sequence is set in this order: A, C, CD-ROM.
Still no joy! As usual, my luck is holding.......at zilch!


Damn. In that case, you might have a bad IDE controller. -Dave

seabat wrote:

On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 18:53:07 -0500, "Dave C." wrote:



OK, two possibilities. First, is the CMOS battery dead? If so, you might
have to replace it and then re-detect or re-program the hard drive settings
in BIOS.



Replaced the battery. BIOS wouldn't detect hard drive (1.28GB) so
entered info manually. Still no go!


Second possibility is that the hard drive was formatted, and boot sequence
is set to hard drive FIRST. In that case, you will get "invalid system
disk". You won't necessarily be able to boot a floppy disk that way. -Dave



The BIOS boot sequence is set in this order: A, C, CD-ROM.
Still no joy! As usual, my luck is holding.......at zilch!



Remove the hard drive. Strange as it may seem, a dead hard drive can cause
both floppy and CD boot failure. Same goes for a bad CD-Drive and floppy as
well so you might need to try each one separately to resolve it.

Plus, since you're having problems with an 'unknown' system, meaning you've
never seen it run, you should not 'assume' that anything on it is cabled or
jumpered correctly. I.E. check it all.

Remove the hard drive. Strange as it may seem, a dead hard drive can cause both floppy and CD boot
failure. Same goes for a bad CD-Drive and floppy as well so you might need to try each one
separately to resolve it.

Plus, since you're having problems with an 'unknown' system, meaning you've never seen it run, you
should not 'assume' that anything on it is cabled or jumpered correctly. I.E. check it all.





I agree with HD problem especially if the 'puter has been sitting for a while. What I ran into once
with a Compaq was the same thing. How I got it running was to lift the front of the pc up about 4 or
5" during boot up just before the error message and then drop it! The jolt got the drive spinning up
and it booted fine after that.
My computer was sitting in a unheated garage for a couple of months during cold weather and I didn't
care too much about it since I was using my "new" system in a heated house. Come to think of it I
might of dropped it a couple of times in rapid succession to get it going, either way I had nothing
to lose. (the PC repair guys are probable mad at me now for letting their biggest repair trick out
of the bag :-)

MrKoko

"Mr Koko" wrote in message
...


Remove the hard drive. Strange as it may seem, a dead hard drive can
cause both floppy and CD boot failure. Same goes for a bad CD-Drive and
floppy as well so you might need to try each one separately to resolve
it.

Plus, since you're having problems with an 'unknown' system, meaning
you've never seen it run, you should not 'assume' that anything on it is
cabled or jumpered correctly. I.E. check it all.





I agree with HD problem especially if the 'puter has been sitting for a
while. What I ran into once with a Compaq was the same thing. How I got it
running was to lift the front of the pc up about 4 or 5" during boot up
just before the error message and then drop it! The jolt got the drive
spinning up and it booted fine after that.
My computer was sitting in a unheated garage for a couple of months during
cold weather and I didn't care too much about it since I was using my
"new" system in a heated house. Come to think of it I might of dropped it
a couple of times in rapid succession to get it going, either way I had
nothing to lose. (the PC repair guys are probable mad at me now for
letting their biggest repair trick out of the bag :-)

MrKoko


With the large heatsinks used today, the socket might rip right out of the
motherboard if you drop it too hard (I've seen this on PC's that have been
shipped), not to mention cracking the motherboard or something else.

Then there is also the old "shock damage" that may occur.



..

On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 16:38:08 -0600 The moonlight laughed on the
blade's edge when seabat wrote :

Howdy:

I've got this old Hewitt Rand 'puter that I'm trying to get running.
It has a 120MHz CPU (unknown make), 16MB RAM, Windows 95 (supposed to
be loaded on drive?). I turn the machine on and it goes through the
POST and then displays all the CPU, hard disk, Plug and Play info and
some stuff about PCI devices.

It then displays this:
External Cache Type : Pipelined BUrst
EDO in DRAM Row(s) : 0

Invalid system disk
Replace the disk, and then press any key

There is no disk in the drives! I've tried starting it up with a Win95
start-up disk, with Win95 CD in CD-ROM, a combination of the two and I
still get to this point only. I've been into the BIOS (American) and
everything seems kosher there. The floppy lites up and you can hear it
accessing the disk, but that's it! If I could get it to a command
promt I would be very happy. Any ideas?

Thanks.

From your boot floppy issue the command
sys c: and press Enter and see if remaking the drive a system drive
helps?



--
Free Windows/PC help,
http://www.geocities.com/sheppola/trouble.html
remove obvious to reply
email
Free original songs to download and,"BURN" :O)
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/8/nomessiahsmusic.htm

Shep© wrote:
The moonlight laughed on the blade's edge when seabat wrote :

Howdy:

I've got this old Hewitt Rand 'puter that I'm trying to get running.
It has a 120MHz CPU (unknown make), 16MB RAM, Windows 95 (supposed to
be loaded on drive?). I turn the machine on and it goes through the
POST and then displays all the CPU, hard disk, Plug and Play info and
some stuff about PCI devices.

It then displays this:
External Cache Type : Pipelined BUrst
EDO in DRAM Row(s) : 0

Invalid system disk
Replace the disk, and then press any key

There is no disk in the drives! I've tried starting it up with a
Win95 start-up disk, with Win95 CD in CD-ROM, a combination of the
two and I still get to this point only. I've been into the BIOS
(American) and everything seems kosher there. The floppy lites up
and you can hear it accessing the disk, but that's it! If I could
get it to a command promt I would be very happy. Any ideas?

Thanks.

From your boot floppy issue the command
sys c: and press Enter and see if remaking the drive a system drive
helps?

He can't "get to a command prompt".








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From: Shep¸
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Subject: Invalid system disk
Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 00:40:55 +0000
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On Fri, 19 Nov 2004 02:22:00 GMT The moonlight laughed on the blade's
edge when John Doe wrote :

Shep© wrote:
The moonlight laughed on the blade's edge when seabat wrote :

Howdy:

I've got this old Hewitt Rand 'puter that I'm trying to get running.
It has a 120MHz CPU (unknown make), 16MB RAM, Windows 95 (supposed to
be loaded on drive?). I turn the machine on and it goes through the
POST and then displays all the CPU, hard disk, Plug and Play info and
some stuff about PCI devices.

It then displays this:
External Cache Type : Pipelined BUrst
EDO in DRAM Row(s) : 0

Invalid system disk
Replace the disk, and then press any key

There is no disk in the drives! I've tried starting it up with a
Win95 start-up disk, with Win95 CD in CD-ROM, a combination of the
two and I still get to this point only. I've been into the BIOS
(American) and everything seems kosher there. The floppy lites up
and you can hear it accessing the disk, but that's it! If I could
get it to a command promt I would be very happy. Any ideas?

Thanks.

From your boot floppy issue the command
sys c: and press Enter and see if remaking the drive a system drive
helps?

He can't "get to a command prompt".

Not even from a boot floppy?



--
Free Windows/PC help,
http://www.geocities.com/sheppola/trouble.html
remove obvious to reply
email
Free original songs to download and,"BURN" :O)
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/8/nomessiahsmusic.htm