invalid system disk( harddrive)

thanks bob
I tried a startup disk from a cnet recomendation but no go I then put the hd in another computer, running win98 (not ME_) and I can look at it but I can't find anything in the recycle bin. soooo maybe I can find what I have to rebuiild to get somewhere there are cabinet files containing the system anyone know how to restore a drive that isn't the boot drive?

Norm

while trying to get info to fix my harddrive, the local thriftshop run by teh local churches recycles computers and discards 1 to 30 gig harddrives when they have more than they can use. not a lot of them ,but if you are in the right place at the right time a ten gig hd could hold enough to help out for next to nothing. Ive also found an electronic salvage yard in lawrenceville near pittsburgh, pa every majorcity probably has at least one. Norm

Tony thanks for the reply, I been awaay for a while

1) I must have the ME drive as the boot drive , not as a slave, Right?

2) If I deleted my FAT two or three times will the boot disk get me to where I could use a restore point, if it wasn't shut off to remove virus in temporary files

3) is there any way to activate the restore command, and not lose everything if I can access the restore file in the root directory

thanks again
Norm

Yes...the ME drive has to be the boot drive in order for the SYS C: command to work from the floppy boot disk because C: assumes it's the boot drive. I had assumed all along that the ME drive was the boot drive in this computer because you mentioned the desktop icons showing up and they wouldn't unless you have a dual boot system going on with XP or W2K, which you didn't mention. And the 'invalid system disk' message only shows up regarding a boot drive.

What exactly do you mean when you say you can delete the FAT two or three times? As far as I know, wiping out a FAT on a drive actually involves wiping the harddrive completely to start over....which is NOT what you want to do if you want to salvage the files.

You can use DOS to restore your ME system to a previous good configuration date if you know exactly the date you deleted things that messed it up, and if you can get access to the C: drive once ME is the boot drive again. Do you get access to the files on that drive in DOS?

Last resort, if you have the separate installation disk for ME and not a vendor Restore/Recovery disk, you can reinstall ME over the top of itself (you also need to have the Product Code Key to do so or the installation won't finish....so either have it handy or if you have access to the drive in DOS, you can get it from the registry)

Let us know what's possible from what I've asked here so we know what direction to take next....

TONI

You can only do a Registry Restore from DOS...not a full system restore. But it might be enough to correct what needs to be fixed in order to perhaps get you to safemode where a System Restore can be done.

Two commands if you can get into DOS would be

SCANREG /FIX
SCANREG /RESTORE

But first we need to find out if you can get access....

TONI

Courtesy of Mike Maltby MS-MVP:

Depending on the problems you are having you may be able to use system restore using the following method which requires you to boot to DOS using your EBD and editing system.ini and replacing the line

shell=explorer.exe with one reading

shell=C:\windows\system\restore\rstrui.exe

Now remove the EBD and see if you can start Win and boot direct into System Restore.

For more details see KB 279736 ''How to Start the System Restore Tool from a Command Prompt'' (http://support.microsoft.com?kbid=279736) which mentions using progman.exe after which you can then locate and run rstrui.exe however using rstrui.exe as above works equally well.

Failing that you will have to fall back on your backups.

Unquote

Zee

I now have it in my archived files.......

TONI

I originally deleted some files more than one, after wich I teceived the invalid drive message. I thought I understood that the fat was copied in at least two places. Thats why I said two times on the delete

Presently my ME drive is the slave to a win 98 os. I can access the files from the win 98, and I'm sure I can get to them from dos on the boot floppy . my hope was to restore to a specific date

I suspected that If i tried a restore with ME as the D drive the restoration would take place on the C drive/

I appreciate the info, two heads are better than one(I' m not counting mine) I'll collect all th e info on hard copy and try to map out the recovery plan I'll check back in case anyone has anything else to help.

I've reread your answer, and I'm not shure where everything has to be positioned

Ican make the Me drive the master C again (currently D) and start it from a boot disc but I don't know if I switch my current C 98 0s to D that I could start windows, if that was what was needed. what about renaming drives?

I can swap cables and jumpers if needed . I'm going to checkout the info from blue zee at microsoft

I think I can navagate Dos with instructions need to know how to find the restore pt. from dos thanks Norm

drive as Master, that way you don't have to worry about messing up the other drive at all. You will use the boot disk for ME, and at the A: prompt, type SCANREG /RESTORE and you will get a window with a few dates that you can backtrack to. You can do a System Restore using the information from Zee's post.

If absolutely necessary, you can also load up the cdrom drivers, and put your ME disk into the drive, have your product code key handy, and just reinstall ME over the top of itself. That will also repair files and replace missing ones, but leave the rest of your stuff alone that's still on the harddrive. I've done this many times with W98 with no problems, and just did it again three or four days ago with my sister's computer when she was getting 'invalid system disk' on bootup after trying other things first.

TONI

thanks that was the way I saw it too Norm

ok I followed the instructions and everything seemed to be going fine, did the scanregfix and the scan restore it said everything was successful when I went to safe mode it got to a certain point said there was a problem and the system halted I couldn't get back to the same place to write down the probs.

however in process of trying to figure out what happened I typed the path command and the answer was path= suprise no path

is that command part of the ansi.sys file?CAn I just type the path=c:\windows;\windows\command anyway, I can't remember and ME might be different so Toni, Zee, whats my next step? Norm

are you trying to type? The one Zee gave you?

TONI

at the dos prompt, after things stopped, I typed
"path" the usual response should be:
path= c:\windows;c:\windows\command

the path command varies somewhat in different dos or windows versions which is why I wasn't sure what it should be in windows ME any idea? Norm

I'm assuming you want to type a command of some sort in dos, but just typing 'path' doesn't tell us what type of command you are trying to instruct dos to perform.

TONI

as I understand it a computer cant do anything if it doesn't know the path it neeeds to follow to get to where it is told to go. on every computer i've ever iyped "path" into at the dos prompt, it has responded with the path that the computer has been told to follow when it starts or is given a dos command. try it go to your dos prompt on your program files click to get the dos prommpt screen and type path

what i'm trying to do is find out what the standard path for the ME os is Norm

or are you at the command prompt in a Windows ME environment?

Whenever I am in dos, by using the bootdisk to get to the A: prompt and starting from there, I either use the commands that are already on the bootdisk, or I change to C:\Windows\Command and type the specific command I need to use at that prompt instead since not all of the commands are on the bootdisk.

Since my Windows XP is still FAT32, I can use a W98 bootdisk, and still use a true dos command for most of what I want to do rather than the command prompt within XP itself. A few of the commands don't work no matter what, such as Fdisk, because XP doesn't use it, but the majority of the commands are recognized easily.

So, again, I'm confused about what actual command you are wanting to tell the computer to do, and what command prompt you are actually at with ME? A windows environment command prompt or a true dos environment with the bootdisk? If it's the System Restore function that Zee mentioned, I believe he meant this could be done within a true Dos environment with the bootdisk.....in order to edit the system.ini file as he mentioned....and that would I believe be the system.ini file in C:\Windows.

TONI

Launching System Restore after editing system.ini (in C:\Windows) as explained in:

http://reviews.cnet.com/5208-6141-0.html?forumID=8&threadID=95683&messageID=1195656

After editing restart WITHOUT the floppy and hopefully System Restore will be launched on bootup.

Zee

I used the boot disc and did the scan registry fix and the scanreg restore and was told that I had been successful

I went to the system restore and it seemed to start I was told it would take awhile and then received the message:

while initializing device IFSMGR
the Micorsoft installable File System Manager cannot find the helper driver. be sure the IFSHLP.SYS has been installed

I was then told it couldn't continue and it gave three specfic reasons. I didn't write them down immediately and could never get back to that point again to find out the actual messages.

It was at this point that I asked the computer what the path was. the computer didn't know the path. I was at the c prompt.

Previously I had been told by the computer that the path was a:\; c:\;c:\windows\command now there is no response ecept path= and nothing follows the equal sign. Norm

thanks Toni I printed out your reply I do have all the files in options\cab

I was examining the root directory and found out that my config.sys file is empty 0 bits. could this be the problem?

c;\windows\protocol.ini is empty also both of these files are dated from the computers birthday and are original Im not familiar with the protocol file

when I tried to start the computer without cdrom support I was told that the diagnostic files had been loaded to D: (the ramdrive?)

there is no autoexec.bat in my root directory, but I don't know if it is needed in ME.

I await your reply with bated breath Norm

It's not used for much and autoexec.bat even less.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q274646/ writes:

"Because Windows Millennium Edition (Me) does not parse the Config.sys file during the Windows boot process, MS-DOS-based programs that require Config.sys settings that are not the default settings may be affected. This article describes the default values that are used by Windows Me for the more common settings, and provides information about how to modify the value of the parameters if possible."

thanks I saw that article which shuts down that avenue.What about the fdisk/MBR command. some info I've seen points to the MBR as the source of the invalid system disk error message.

What is the normal process for the computer to follow going from post to windows boot Norm

Hi Toni I tried to do the extraction but got a message : error could not open file.

I drilled down through the directories to win_19,cab and didn't find a directory \win98\ so I eliminated that from the command line and tried again, same message error.

I typed extract at the c: prompt and brought up the format screen for extraction but It is not making any sense to me I dunno maybe I need a different switch in the command line? Norm

you either have to use it from the A: prompt using a bootdisk that has that command file already on it, or you have to switch to the C:\Windows\Command directory and then use it since Extract is a command within that folder/directory.

Location is everything.....lol....and dos is extremely unforgiving.

TONI

sorry , I was in the cabs directory. typing extract+ enter at the comand prompt brought up the extract menu/format, but like I said, I wasn't making sense of it.

I'll try from the boot disk,but I don't have much hope. what about the win98 directory in the command line Its not in my ME cabs directory. thanx Norm

extract C:\Windows\Options\Cabs\win98_XX.cab\ifshlp.sys /L C:\Windows

Replace the XX with the number of the cab file as I don't recall it now, but it might be 19.

If that doesn't work for some reason and you get back to the A: prompt with an error saying it couldn't be extracted or some such, type

C: and press Enter then type

cd\Windows\Command and press Enter so you should begin the Extract line at the

C:\Windows\Command>

TONI