Invalid system disk

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seabat

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.
 
seabat said:
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.
Click to expand...

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

The BIOS boot sequence is set in this order: A, C, CD-ROM.
Still no joy! As usual, my luck is holding.......at zilch!
 
seabat said:
Replaced the battery. BIOS wouldn't detect hard drive (1.28GB) so
entered info manually. Still no go!


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

Damn. In that case, you might have a bad IDE controller. -Dave
 
seabat said:
Replaced the battery. BIOS wouldn't detect hard drive (1.28GB) so
entered info manually. Still no go!




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

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.
Click to expand...

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 said:
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
Click to expand...

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.



..
 
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.
Click to expand...

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



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Shep© said:
From your boot floppy issue the command
sys c: and press Enter and see if remaking the drive a system drive
helps?
Click to expand...

He can't "get to a command prompt".
 
Yeah, it showed as good RAM . I didn't see anything in the BIOS about
Quick Boot?

I exchanged the hard drive with another Western DIgital 1.2MB Caviar
21200 that is know to be OK and now I can't even get it to a start up
screen. There's an LED on the front of the case that used to read 120
and now reads 78 when I start it up. I thought it indicated voltage
(just a guess) but now I don't have a clue.

Tried changing out the floppy and reversing all the cables to the
floppy and so forth, still no go. I can hear the hard drive spinning
up, but my screen remains blank now.

I don't hear any beeps upon start-up now, either.
 
....
I exchanged the hard drive with another Western DIgital 1.2MB
Caviar 21200 that is know to be OK and now I can't even get it to a
start up screen.
Click to expand...

Disconnect the floppy disk drive cable and any other cables you might
have reversed, as you stated below.

After that, I would do this.
.... Remove all hard disk drives, CD-ROM drives, and any other drives
except the floppy disk drive.
.... Remove memory except for one chip, probably keep the one in slot
0.
.... Remove all PCI/ISA/whatever cards except your video card.
.... Disconnect all cables except power, video, and keyboard.
.... In other words, remove everything except what you might need to
get to the boot floppy disk. That is mainboard, CPU, memory, video
card, floppy disk drive, keyboard and monitor.

Figure out how to connect the floppy disk drive cable correctly, and
then reconnect it. Use a permanent marker to write on the FDD cable.

Going into the BIOS might be useful while having problems, like to
check whether disk drives are set up properly. There might be a
setting in the BIOS which needs to read 1.44MB floppy drive, assuming
that is correct for your FDD.
There's an LED on the front of the case that used to read 120
and now reads 78 when I start it up. I thought it indicated voltage
(just a guess) but now I don't have a clue.
Click to expand...

You wrote:
"It has a 120MHz CPU"
Apparently, now it's running at 78MHz.
Tried changing out the floppy and reversing all the cables to the
floppy and so forth,
Click to expand...

Don't do that.
still no go. I can hear the hard drive spinning
up, but my screen remains blank now.
I don't hear any beeps upon start-up now, either.
Click to expand...

Probably at least in part because you reversed the floppy disk drive
cable.

With the floppy cable properly connected, are you sure the floppy
disk drive is working properly?

For your information, not necessarily for right now. There is a key
you have to press during boot up to get to the Windows startup
prompt. It might be the control key or the F8 key.
 
Your BIOS boot sequence is set to A, C, CD-ROM, so it must looking for boot
from A first.
(that means it has nothing to do with HD, CD-ROM, battery etc.)

You got to the point, it says:
Invalid system disk
Replace the disk, and then press any key
(that means your floppy drive is connected corrected, it is already booting
from A)

So the problem is very obvious, you have a invalid floppy disk, it can not
boot from.
Where did you get your floppy disk?
You can try any Win95 Win98 rescue disk, and use it to boot.

I strongly believe your problem is simply an unbootable floppy disk, or a
bad floppy disk.
 
???? said:
Your BIOS boot sequence is set to A, C, CD-ROM, so it must looking for boot
from A first.
(that means it has nothing to do with HD, CD-ROM, battery etc.)

You got to the point, it says:
Invalid system disk
Replace the disk, and then press any key
(that means your floppy drive is connected corrected, it is already booting
from A)

So the problem is very obvious, you have a invalid floppy disk, it can not
boot from.
Click to expand...

How does he have an invalid floppy disk when he said "There is no disk in
the drives!"?
 
David Maynard said:
How does he have an invalid floppy disk when he said "There is no disk in
the drives!"?
Click to expand...
I believe, and strongly believe, "There is no disk in the drive" means no
floppy disk in the drive, if it says "Invalid system disk" which menas you
do have a floppy disk but it is either not a bootable disk, or a bad floppy
disk. It is pretty easy for any machine to detect whether there is a floppy
disk set in the drive.
 
???? said:
I believe, and strongly believe, "There is no disk in the drive" means
no floppy disk in the drive,
Click to expand...

"There is no disk in the drives!" (note, plural) was his statement that
there were no disks in either the CD or the floppy.
if it says "Invalid system disk" which menas you do have a floppy disk
but it is either not a bootable disk, or a bad floppy disk. It is pretty
easy for any machine to detect whether there is a floppy disk set in the
drive.
Click to expand...

"Invalid system disk" is for any drive that fails to boot and if it tries
to boot from a hard drive with an invalid boot sector it will say "invalid
system disk" because, well, it's invalid.

Now, if he has an invalid hard drive boot sector, for whatever reason, it's
no surprise that he can't boot from the his Win95 CD as it'll never get to
trying it since, with his boot sequence being A, C, CDROM, it'll fail on
the hard drive with "invalid system disk" (Newer system will sometimes
continue trying other boot devices but old systems invariably 'stop' on the
first thing in the sequence that has a disk. I.E. start checking in order
of boot sequence. Ah, found a disk. Rats, failed. "invalid system disk").
So, he might be able to get up and running if he simply changed the boot
sequence to CDROM, A, C, or CDROM, C, A and booted from the Win95 install
CD, assuming it's bootable (and not all are).

As for failing to boot from the startup floppy (the time he put it in the
drive), it's an old system and the floppy drive, and/or the floppy disk
he's trying to use, may simply be bad. You'll get the same "invalid system
disk". (I've seen bad floppy drives that appear to work, from the LED
blinking, but won't read and, worse yet, insist they have a floppy in them
whether they do or not. And if they're the first boot device then that will
prevent anything from booting)

It is also possible for a failed device on one port to prevent the others
from booting and, in that case, the most effective way to narrow it down is
to remove them all and then try them one by one, alone, with the boot
sequence set to boot first from the one installed device. And, for the
floppy, find some way to obtain a known good, bootable, floppy disk to test
with, as well as finding a known bootable CD if one is going to try booting
from that. (Since he found a way to post I would imagine he could find
something).

The least likely failure is the motherboard.
 
???? said:
I believe, and strongly believe, "There is no disk in the drive"
means no floppy disk in the drive, if it says "Invalid system disk"
which menas you do have a floppy disk but it is either not a
bootable disk, or a bad floppy disk. It is pretty easy for any
machine to detect whether there is a floppy disk set in the drive.
Click to expand...

.... Remove all of the drives except the floppy.
.... Try booting with or without a floppy disk inserted.

I think you are right if the hard disk drive and the floppy disk
both were invalid.

Have a great day (or night) anyway.
 
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