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General discussion

Invalid System Disk?

Feb 10, 2004 12:13PM PST

I have an old PC (Compaq Presario 4910) that I haven't used in years. Today, I realized I might have some old files on it that I might want to see again, so I hooked it back up. Unfortunately, after the standard COMPAQ screen and password check, I received this error:

Invalid System Disk
Replace the disk, and then press any key


I remember that in the days leading up to the purchase of my current PC, I deleted a lot of excess files, but I didn't think I did anything to hurt my computer. Maybe I was wrong. What happened? What does "Invalid System Disk" mean? How can I fix it?

Thanks in advance.

Discussion is locked

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my guess
Feb 10, 2004 2:55PM PST

well first, is there a disk in the floppy drive? try removing it, then rebooting.

that message means there's no OS on the first disk drive of the "boot sequence."

if the error is not because of the bios looking for an OS on the floppy, even if your hard drive operating system files are corrupted/gone, with a little perseverance you can remove the drive and hook it up to your other machine and get the data files off it that way-- assuming of course, that the drive still works. - fj

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Re:Invalid System Disk?
Feb 10, 2004 2:55PM PST

Check to see if there is a diskette in the floppy drive. This can cause this error message on boot.

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Re:Invalid System Disk?
Feb 10, 2004 9:58PM PST

If you wiped out import files in the root directory the system will no longer boot. You need to SYS the drive to get it to boot again, if it is seen at boot time.

Boot with a floppy disk that has the same version of DOS that is on the system (www.bootdisk.com for a copy) and then SYS the drive

SYS A: C:

to restore the boot information and get it to boot up.