invalid system disk error

[katy]

well the kids have managed to really foul up their computer this time......they have an old Packard Bell with Windows 98......They went in and attempted to have it ask for a password.....now when we boot we get the first screen okay and then it asks for the password....when we give it and press enter we get the following screen
OS load in progress
EZ-Bios: intializing
EZ- Bios: Hold CTRL key for status screen or to boot from floppy....
E-z Bios Continuing startup.....
Invalid System disk replace disk and press any key

I can get no further than this everything I try to do just gives me a repeat of the last line "Invalid system disk replace disk and press any key" I did manage to get into the status screen but haven't tried changing anything there.......(Or I guess it is the status screen? It is a chart titled EZ Bios 9.06, has hard drive 1 listed on it and a column of info that is highlighted. also has press c to boot from c or press a to boot from a at the bottom) If we do either of these it just goes back to the Invalid System disk thing..............I have an emergency boot disc from my Compaq computer which is running 98SE but none for this older computer.......we have no restore cds or any of that either........are we just done for or can someone tell me how to get it booted up? Please be detailed.....my knowledge of computers is maybe "above average" but I know nothing about what is going on with this old one.......... Thanks

[POBrien]

what was the end result of this issue.. ?

http://www.winguides.com/forums/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Board=genwin&Number=33199&page=&view=&sb=


For this current posting, There's a floppy disk in the floppy drive. remove it and reboot.

[katy]

Outcome of first issue: it's still stretched half way across the screen and gol I did know to check for a floppy in the drive.....it was empty

I did find a site where I could create a 98 startup disk but after attempting to use it the machine in question still does the same thing.....

[Mosaic1]

Katy started another thread. I copied it and am posting it here. I hope that's OK
<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr>


I finally got in with the Emergency startup disk....I have gotten to this message:
Windows 98 has detected that drive C does not contain a valid fat or fat32 partition. There are several possible causes.
1 the drive may need to be partitioned. To create a partition run FDISK from MSDOS command prompt.
2 you may be using third party disk partitioning software, if so remove Emergency Boot sick and restart, then follow instructions to start from a floppy disk.
3 Some viruses also cause your drive C not to register. You can use a virus scanning program to check for viruses.
The diagnostic tools were successfully loaded to drive C.

Well what the heck have they done to this thing? All they do is play the games that came with it....there are no big graphic ones on it. The thing was never connected to the internet, so don't see how it could be a virus. I am just going to leave it at the present spot and wait to see if someone has an answer and instructions for me......I printed out the help file from the Emergency disk on my computer and guess I will be checking into that first option? Do appreciate any and all help!

<hr></blockquote>


You have a drive overlay called EZBios on the drive. What make is your hard drive? This is software which is used to setup a new Hard Drive. Manufacturers provide it. It must have been used to partition the drive originally.

Let's have a look at your drive using fdisk. You are not going to perform an fdisk. Just use Fdisk to get the partition information.
Use the bootdisk and at the prompt type

fdisk press enter
Press Y and press enter to accept Large Drive Support
Choose 4 from the menu and press enter to display partition information.
Note that and all other information you see. Exit fdisk.

You should have a Primary DOS partition listed on the screen. There will be a heading: "STATUS"
Under that heading is there an A (This stands for active) Post back. If there is not an A, we can try using fdisk to set the Primary Dos Partition to Active.

[Mosaic1]

Katy,
What kind of a password did they set? Possibly in the BIOS aka CMOS aka setup? It's important to know exactly what they did if they can remember.

[katy]

Sorry for the confusion.......here is what is there

first line...partition..1..status...A...type....non-dos...volum lable...blank.....mbytes.....1906.....system....bl ank.....usage....95%
Second line.....partition....2.....status.....blank.....t ype.....non-dos.....volumn lable.....blank.....mbytes....532.....system.....b lank....usage.....26% (blank meaning empty)
Total disc space 2012 mbytes

I would still like to know what the heck they did to get it in this mess......it was an old computer from friends who got a new one and we have just let kids play the games on it......like I said it was never on line and I have no idea where they got it. I really never payed any attention to what all was on it.... thanks for this help......I am in way over my head! ha

[katy]

I even managed to get in there where they had put the password and took it out...it was where you could enable or disable things, you could determine which drive was the first boot and which was the second....(I wondered those could possibly have anything to do with it)....I did the bit where you list the old password and then leave the new ones blank and so it does away with that.....I didn't change anything else...........but who knows if they did or not....I was thinking that it had a C and D drive besides the floppy and cd-rom..........it still wouldn't boot......it just continued to do what I stated in the original post. I still have it setting in there running on the emergency boot disk where I exited out of FDISK. I tried I don't know how many times before I got it to start on that disk....and there is no telling what they have changed in it!!! I have one who is really inquisitive and knows just enough to be dangerous.......and needless to say, he didn't do "anything"! I think I will lock THIS computer in the bedroom! ha I certainly thank you for the help....be willing to try anything else you can come up with! Katy

[Mosaic1]

It says you have NON DOS partitions. Ouch. Windows needs DOS partitions to boot. I am not familiar with EZBIOS. Do your friends have a bootdisk for the Computer? It may be possible to boot with a special one. EZBIOS is an old overlay. As for what the kids did? I wonder if they even know. But you can ask them again.
I honestly am at the limit of my knowledge on this. And Packard Bell is long gone.
However, do not erase anything. That is an old Computer and you may need that overlay. I don't know.

[Mosaic1]

katy,
Wait a minute. When you fdisked did you have a #5 on the menu? That would mean there would be two Hard Disks. If somehow you are booting to the wrong disk...... In the BIOS, have it autodetect the hard drives and see what it says. If there are two, it is possible that you can make the Primary DOS Partition on the other drive active. The boot order should be A C IF C has the Primary DOS partition.
Otherwise none of this would make sense.

OR more than likely they changed the boot order in the BIOS.
That order should be Boot to floppy first and then the Hard Drive with the Primary DOS Partition.

PS Don't worry about the confusion. These Boards can be hard to work when you are new to them.

[katy]

I can go and fight it and maybe find out about that order of the boot.......and the screen that I had up on the bios was simply a chart and some things looked highlighted but you couldn't do anything to them..........I will have to try to find that again and make exactly sure what it said. however I did do FDISK/STATUS and it came up 1disk, drive blank, mbytes 2012, free blank, usage 100%...whatever that meant......... Gee, this is interesting, too bad I don't have a clue in hell what I am doing.....ha I will try to find this stuff! Later......Katy

[Mosaic1]

It sounds like you are getting a crash course.
Let me explain a little. The CMOS aka BIOS aka Setup is the first leg in the boot process. It holds the information on what hardware (drives in this case) is connected to the computer. It has a lot of information regarding settings for the hardware including in what order those drives should boot.

IF you change something in there, you can hose the system.

A hard drive doesn't change from DOS to NON DOS partitions by itself. EZBIOS was used to set up that disk.
Your children would not have been able to do that.
The computer worked before. You never had to do anything special to boot into Windows.

What is going on? Hopefully, you have two Hard Drives on the Computer. When the kids were in the BIOS, they played with the boot order and now instead of booting to the Drive containing the Primary DOS partition, the computer is booting to the other, non dos. That is the only thing which makes sense to me. They may have pressed something else and disabled the other hard drive. That's why autodetecting is a good idea. See if it does have two.
I know you'll be able to do this. When you get things set, you will need to Save your changes and exit. Good luck.

In the event that you have done everything and the BIOS still says there is only one drive, there is another possibility. That is a hardware problem. In that case you would open the tower, (be sure to unplug the computer, wait a few minutes and discharge any static by touching the case. Static electricity can kill a computer, so don't crawl on the floor . If the room is carpeted, you might move the tower someplace else) See if there are two Hard Drives in there? Are the connections all snug? Things can come loose.

EDIT: You have to use the arrow keys to move around because you have no Mouse. Enter and Esc are yes and no.

[katy]

Well I just don't know......I wouldn't have thought they could have changed anything that would have gotten this complicated myself......but it WAS working......Okay I was into SETUP under Main: there is floppy a installed floppy B not installed floppy a 1.44 mb floppy b disabled. Primary IDE master WDCAC22500L it is auto configured on three or four more settings.....Primary IDE slave..not installed ........Secondary IDE master..NEC...auto configuration....secondary IDE slave....not installed.......first boot device-floppy, second boot device, hard disk, third and 4th boot devices are disabled

In the EZ Bios chart.....9.06 1997 ......hard drive column 1 all options listed are enabled except 32 bit transfer.......this is where at the bottom it says type A to boot from A drive and type C to boot from C drive......but whichever you do you get invalid system disc..So where might the Bios be?......if there is anything else I can get into I haven't discovered it yet......anymore ideas?...I will try to find out if there is a boot disk for it but I am figuring if there was we will never be able to run it down. Oh well easy come and easy go I guess......If I could find a copy of windows could I manage to wipe this thing clean and install it? Everyone else is gone this evening but I will try to grill those boys more about what they "didn't" mess with! ha

[Mosaic1]

This is getting complicated. If the kids somehow got their hands on an old disk utility and wiped out all the information, and repartitioned the drive into Non Dos Partitions, you are going to have a hard time. DOS Fdisk will not be able to remove the non dos partitions. And that's what you have to do. Wipe everything out. Start over and repartition the drive. Format and reinstall. Not that difficult. But it has to be done the right way. You need Partition Magic (not free) or Ranish Partition which is free but not as easy to use. Or possibly a special utility from the hard drive manufacturer to wipe the drive.
Plus, you may not have all the Drivers after you manage to install Windows. You need drivers to run the audio, video. monitor etc. You may not have these on the Windows install disk. And Packard Bell's were very proprietary, which means you'll have a hard time finding the correct drivers.
I would suggest you leave this until later. Get all the information you can from the previous owners &gt;&gt;&gt;How did they reinstall if they ever did? Do they have a restore disk or one with drivers on it? Model # etc.
CMOS SETUP & BIOS are all the same. If you went in an auto detected the drives, you were there. If you removed the BIOS Password you werer there.
I am really amazed and honestly cannot believe this. I wonder what happened.


CMOS SETUP & BIOS are all the same. If you went in an auto detected the drives, you were there. If you removed the BIOS Password you werer there.
I am really amazed and honestly cannot believe this. I wonder what happened.

[Mosaic1]

Floppy A 1.44 MB Should be enabled.

From your description I am not sure. The old BIOS didn't recognize CD Drives.
Try going back into SETUP and have it auto detect the drives again.
Here is how it works.
You have two IDE Channels. The Primary and the Secondary.
Each of these can have two drives (Hard Drives or CD Drives) attached. If there is more than one drive on the channel, then one is Master and the other is Slave.
Therefore, there can be four drives.
Primary Master
Primary Slave
Secondary Master
Secondary Slave

However, in this case it is possible that only Hard Drives will be detected because of the age of the computer. I don't know for sure.
I am still not convinced there is not a second hard drive in there. That may just be my stubborn nature. If this is not the case, then someone did something and if they did, they would know it.

[Mosaic1]

And here is another quote about EZBIOS:
DO NOT recommend using a software patch provided with hard drives (programs such as EZ-BIOS, Disk Manager, MaxBlast, and so forth). Hard drive support should be in ROM and not via software tricks such as custom boot sectors. If your system ever gets a boot sector virus, or the boot sector is modified by other software, or you boot from a different disk that does not have the EZ BIOS or other patch software software, you risk losing access to all your data.

I am sorry to keep adding to the confusion. There are just too many possibilities.

[katy]

I am tellin ya these kids know just the right amount to ruin everything in the house! I think I will just lock all of them in rooms and never let them TOUCH the computers.....and also you know how easy it is to just "look" around and end up changing something accidently.....I don't think they used any disks on it cause we don't have anything like that(that I know of) ha.....I think they just changed a setting or something, somewhere....I have messed with some of the settings in there and tried restarting but nothing changes.......I wrote ALL of them down(what a job) and then I asked for the default settings and that is what they were at the beginning......at least when I became aware of the problem. ......and oh boy is there a lot in there!
Floppy A says it is installed and there is a "disabled" in the list but the 1.44mg is what is checked,so I take that to mean it is enabled......floppy B is not installed and is disabled......Primary IDE MASTER.....wdcac22500L, primary IDE slave.....not installed, secondary IDE master...NEC(is this the cdrom?), secondary IDE slave...not installed
The not installed ones are disabled or could be set to auto configure or user definable.......THe translation mode, sector setting and fast programmed I/O modes are all "auto detected" there are "various" other settings on them but seing they are disabled I wouldn't think it would matter! Who would know....
The previous owners only have the 95 complete restore disks that came with the machine when it was new......after the different hard drive and 98 they had no disks or anything. Probably someone bootlegged 98 on to the machine.....I don't think they were ever too happy with it and finally just got a new one........well it was nice to have for a plaything ! It just aggravates me that I can't figure out what the heck is wrong with it! I may find someone else to take a look but I just don't want to spend a bunch of money on it if ya know what I mean? The owners did say that they had used the restore disks a couple of times (before 98 was put on) Why would someone have set it up that way? Dang looks to me like if anything went wrong you were sol. Well I DO thank you for your interest and I will check to see if you post more.....IF I should find out anything I will post back also....Sorry I am not a better "wizard"....I gotta get to bed! oh and don't worry I am not going to try to do anything to it till I find out a good deal more........... Thanks! Katy

[Mosaic1]

The Floppy must be enabled. The size and drive letter are listed too. But it has to be enabled. Usually, there is a choice for each drive. Enabled or disabled, and there would be a checkmark next to the choice.

The EZBIOS is more than likely there because the New Hard Disk (You did say they got a new Hard Drive?)was not suppoprted by the old BIOS. You are not seeing it in there as a result. The EZBIOS is an end run to allow the new disk to be used. Without it, the disk wouldn't work.
I wish someone else more Techhie wouod pop in here.
A restore disk is great except it limits you.
EZ BIOS is also out of date from what I hear.
And A Bios Flash to update is not only dangerous but probably unlikely considering the age of the computer. There is probablt not one available.
Try enabling the Floppy in the BIOS and see what happens.

If Windows 98 was installed and everything on the machine worked, who knows. Maybe it can be done again. But I don't know about the disk size and the BIOS not recognizing it. That would be a big problem. I am going to see if I can get someone more experienced in these things to at least have a look. The main question is whether or not that BIOS supports that Hard Drive. If not, you will have to use an overlay even if you manage to remove this one. As I said before, I doubt a BIOS Flash is either available or feasible at this late date.

[katy]

So you think that "setup" I am getting in is the Bios?......on those boot choices....first boot, choices are, disable, floppy, hard disk, cdrom, network....second boot, disable, floppy, harddisk, network......third, same as second.....fourth same as second. only the first two are set on anything the other two are disabled. A lot of the things that have choices have...disable, auto config or user defined. there are no boxes to check just drop down lists and you choose one. thanks and gotta get the heck out of here and to work.......tonight I am going to TRY to take a look inside that thing. I added ram to mine so surely I can keep from blowing it up........I just have no books or anything on it! Should just haul it to the ditch! ha

[BertImmenschuh]

You might try to locate a book called "Upgrading and Repairing PCs" by Scott Mueller, published by QUE.

[coolsights2000]

the computer will not boot up so you can see the hard drive if the ez-bios doesn't get loaded of the hard drive..
so
when you boot do you see a screen that says hit a key to boot from diskette

also check the battery to see if the cmos battery went dead..

when I did the ezbios on a 450 mb maxtor
if the cmos got changed for the hard drive I had to put the cylinder sectors info back before it would work of course you need to know what to use... the sizes will not be what is on the hard drive....

just a question?????? to ponder

also try and disconnect the second drive that is not the boot up drive and see if it will auto detect the boot up drive

also if you can get ahold of the ez-bios disk it might let you restore want was in the bios for the sector and cylinder settings...

Thanks
Mac!!!

This Is just my opinion
So if it stinks wait for another one
Cause I'm no expert

[katy]

yes I can boot to the floppy disc but then whatever option I choose to start I get the invalid disk messege.......and I had tried to replace those cylinder, heads and sectors numbers with the information listed on that bios chart and that didn't work.......but why wouldn't the Autoconfig put in the right numbers? It is looking like you are right and I need that ezbios disk......I don't suppose anyone knows where one is off hand? ha
And then the other thing, could someone explain why, if the disk was wiped clean the 95 restore cds wouldn't put it back to an operable 95 system.......I didn't quite understand what you all were saying about the right drivers not being there. Wouldn't they be on those restore disks? The computer is all the original stuff except the keyboard.
I still haven't looked inside the case but I am going to do that next.....(just for the hell of it) One thing about it baseball fans, I have sure picked up a lot through all this........everyone on these forums is always so informative......it's great....the ball's in your court if ya have anymore ideas! Thanks! Katy

[katy]

another note.....I forgot to say that the clock is running in the setup so the battery would be ok.....right?

[coolsights2000]

here is a page where you can see the diff types.
what kind of hard drive do you have?
This was on how to repair a virus but it shows the diff things used..

Click here (http://service2.symantec.com/SUPPORT/nav.nsf/docid/2000040516340706)


The ez-bios overlay changes the way the drive is looked at... So it can trick the bios into thinking it is a smaller drive.. That is why the sectors and cylinders sizes don't match the sectors and cylinders of the hard drive... It was used because you bios would not see the real value...

Thanks
Mac!!!

This Is just my opinion
So if it stinks wait for another one
Cause I'm no expert