Invalid system disk

My boot sequence is cd rom/floppy/hd. When I last shut down, I did not take
out my floppy disk after saving my work. Now, when I boot up, it says " Boot
from ATAPI cdrom - no bootable cd rom...... To start IBM Product Recovery
Press F11. Invalid system disk, Replace the disk and press any key"

With floppy as the 1st boot and using the WIN98 starup disk, and at A:
SCANDISK C: , it did fix something and reports no bad sectors. However, when
I try to boot up as per normal (without the floppy) , it still give me the
above message " Boot from................ Invalid system disk...........press
anay key". Now,how can I get the pc going again withot going through
reformatting/recovery path as I need my daya? Thanks

system going? Thanks

Start the computer with the Startup boot diskette and issue:

a:\sys c:

John

mayfriday wrote:

My boot sequence is cd rom/floppy/hd. When I last shut down, I did not take
out my floppy disk after saving my work. Now, when I boot up, it says " Boot
from ATAPI cdrom - no bootable cd rom...... To start IBM Product Recovery
Press F11. Invalid system disk, Replace the disk and press any key"

With floppy as the 1st boot and using the WIN98 starup disk, and at A:
SCANDISK C: , it did fix something and reports no bad sectors. However, when
I try to boot up as per normal (without the floppy) , it still give me the
above message " Boot from................ Invalid system disk...........press
anay key". Now,how can I get the pc going again withot going through
reformatting/recovery path as I need my daya? Thanks

system going? Thanks

Do you mean at A: type in a:\sys c: , thanks

"John John" wrote:

Start the computer with the Startup boot diskette and issue:

a:\sys c:

John

mayfriday wrote:

My boot sequence is cd rom/floppy/hd. When I last shut down, I did not take
out my floppy disk after saving my work. Now, when I boot up, it says " Boot
from ATAPI cdrom - no bootable cd rom...... To start IBM Product Recovery
Press F11. Invalid system disk, Replace the disk and press any key"

With floppy as the 1st boot and using the WIN98 starup disk, and at A:
SCANDISK C: , it did fix something and reports no bad sectors. However, when
I try to boot up as per normal (without the floppy) , it still give me the
above message " Boot from................ Invalid system disk...........press
anay key". Now,how can I get the pc going again withot going through
reformatting/recovery path as I need my daya? Thanks

system going? Thanks

Yes. It will transfer the system files to the hard drive and ensure
that it (the Hard disk) is bootable. If "sys-ing" the C drive doesn't
fix things enter the BIOS and try setting the boot order to the hard
dive first and see what happens.

John

mayfriday wrote:

Do you mean at A: type in a:\sys c: , thanks

"John John" wrote:


Start the computer with the Startup boot diskette and issue:

a:\sys c:

John

mayfriday wrote:


My boot sequence is cd rom/floppy/hd. When I last shut down, I did not take
out my floppy disk after saving my work. Now, when I boot up, it says " Boot
from ATAPI cdrom - no bootable cd rom...... To start IBM Product Recovery
Press F11. Invalid system disk, Replace the disk and press any key"

With floppy as the 1st boot and using the WIN98 starup disk, and at A:
SCANDISK C: , it did fix something and reports no bad sectors. However, when
I try to boot up as per normal (without the floppy) , it still give me the
above message " Boot from................ Invalid system disk...........press
anay key". Now,how can I get the pc going again withot going through
reformatting/recovery path as I need my daya? Thanks

system going? Thanks

At A: and I typed in a:\sys c: , it says "bad commad or file name". What I
have is the Win98 startup disk....so where did I go wrong......... thanks

"John John" wrote:

Yes. It will transfer the system files to the hard drive and ensure
that it (the Hard disk) is bootable. If "sys-ing" the C drive doesn't
fix things enter the BIOS and try setting the boot order to the hard
dive first and see what happens.

John

mayfriday wrote:

Do you mean at A: type in a:\sys c: , thanks

"John John" wrote:


Start the computer with the Startup boot diskette and issue:

a:\sys c:

John

mayfriday wrote:


My boot sequence is cd rom/floppy/hd. When I last shut down, I did not take
out my floppy disk after saving my work. Now, when I boot up, it says " Boot
from ATAPI cdrom - no bootable cd rom...... To start IBM Product Recovery
Press F11. Invalid system disk, Replace the disk and press any key"

With floppy as the 1st boot and using the WIN98 starup disk, and at A:
SCANDISK C: , it did fix something and reports no bad sectors. However, when
I try to boot up as per normal (without the floppy) , it still give me the
above message " Boot from................ Invalid system disk...........press
anay key". Now,how can I get the pc going again withot going through
reformatting/recovery path as I need my daya? Thanks

system going? Thanks

Two small points.

First, if the system is running Win Me it is essential to use a Win Me
startup disk rather than one for Win 98SE
Second, the command to use is SYS C: and not A:\SYS C: The reason being
that the sys command is not on the A:\ drive (floppy) but rather on a RAM
drive on the hard disk that is created temporarily when you boot from the
startup floppy.

If you don't have a Win Me boot floppy download to another PC the image of
an OEM Win Me boot floppy from www.bootdisk.com and then copy that image
to a floppy by double clicking the downloaded file and following the
prompts. Do not simply copy the downloaded image to the floppy.
--
Mike Maltby
MS-MVP Windows



mayfriday wrote:

At A: and I typed in a:\sys c: , it says "bad commad or file name".
What I have is the Win98 startup disk....so where did I go
wrong......... thanks

Try this one:

sys c:

John

mayfriday wrote:

At A: and I typed in a:\sys c: , it says "bad commad or file name". What I
have is the Win98 startup disk....so where did I go wrong......... thanks

"John John" wrote:


Yes. It will transfer the system files to the hard drive and ensure
that it (the Hard disk) is bootable. If "sys-ing" the C drive doesn't
fix things enter the BIOS and try setting the boot order to the hard
dive first and see what happens.

John

mayfriday wrote:


Do you mean at A: type in a:\sys c: , thanks

"John John" wrote:



Start the computer with the Startup boot diskette and issue:

a:\sys c:

John

mayfriday wrote:



My boot sequence is cd rom/floppy/hd. When I last shut down, I did not take
out my floppy disk after saving my work. Now, when I boot up, it says " Boot

from ATAPI cdrom - no bootable cd rom...... To start IBM Product Recovery

Press F11. Invalid system disk, Replace the disk and press any key"

With floppy as the 1st boot and using the WIN98 starup disk, and at A:
SCANDISK C: , it did fix something and reports no bad sectors. However, when
I try to boot up as per normal (without the floppy) , it still give me the
above message " Boot from................ Invalid system disk...........press
anay key". Now,how can I get the pc going again withot going through
reformatting/recovery path as I need my daya? Thanks

system going? Thanks

From the www.bootdisk.com, can you please let me know hwich one do I download
into the desktop first. Is it Windows ME OEM or Windows ME custome no
Ramdrive?
(Fyi, before my OP. I was doing some scanning and I saw the pc says the D is
the Ram drive and E is my cd rom (and there is only 1 partition in my hdd)
So does that means I need to doqnload the Windows ME OEM? Thanks

"Mike M" wrote:

Two small points.

First, if the system is running Win Me it is essential to use a Win Me
startup disk rather than one for Win 98SE
Second, the command to use is SYS C: and not A:\SYS C: The reason being
that the sys command is not on the A:\ drive (floppy) but rather on a RAM
drive on the hard disk that is created temporarily when you boot from the
startup floppy.

If you don't have a Win Me boot floppy download to another PC the image of
an OEM Win Me boot floppy from www.bootdisk.com and then copy that image
to a floppy by double clicking the downloaded file and following the
prompts. Do not simply copy the downloaded image to the floppy.
--
Mike Maltby
MS-MVP Windows



mayfriday wrote:

At A: and I typed in a:\sys c: , it says "bad commad or file name".
What I have is the Win98 startup disk....so where did I go
wrong......... thanks

Get the OEM one.

John

mayfriday wrote:

From the www.bootdisk.com, can you please let me know hwich one do I download
into the desktop first. Is it Windows ME OEM or Windows ME custome no
Ramdrive?
(Fyi, before my OP. I was doing some scanning and I saw the pc says the D is
the Ram drive and E is my cd rom (and there is only 1 partition in my hdd)
So does that means I need to doqnload the Windows ME OEM? Thanks

"Mike M" wrote:


Two small points.

First, if the system is running Win Me it is essential to use a Win Me
startup disk rather than one for Win 98SE
Second, the command to use is SYS C: and not A:\SYS C: The reason being
that the sys command is not on the A:\ drive (floppy) but rather on a RAM
drive on the hard disk that is created temporarily when you boot from the
startup floppy.

If you don't have a Win Me boot floppy download to another PC the image of
an OEM Win Me boot floppy from www.bootdisk.com and then copy that image
to a floppy by double clicking the downloaded file and following the
prompts. Do not simply copy the downloaded image to the floppy.
--
Mike Maltby
MS-MVP Windows



mayfriday wrote:


At A: and I typed in a:\sys c: , it says "bad commad or file name".
What I have is the Win98 startup disk....so where did I go
wrong......... thanks

From www.bootdisk.com and downloaded the ME OEM version and extract to a
floppy and start the pc and at A: sys c: and it gives the following message;-

"Cannot find the system file in the location on dirve c: Sys can only be
used in drive c: to attempt a repair of the already existing installation of
Windows. Use Windows SETUP to make drive c: bootable."

My c: drive contains 6 files and 9 directories as follows:-

[DIR0001} [DISKUN~1] [DISKTW~1] FILE0001.CHK 0003.CHK FILE0004.CHK
FILE005 CHK FILE0006.CHK [LOTUS] [MY Docu~1] [My Down`1] (proga~1)
FILE0002.CHK [IBMTOOLS] (WINDOWS)

Guess something is fishy..... what can I do next? Thanks
"John John" wrote:

Try this one:

sys c:

John

mayfriday wrote:

At A: and I typed in a:\sys c: , it says "bad commad or file name". What I
have is the Win98 startup disk....so where did I go wrong......... thanks

"John John" wrote:


Yes. It will transfer the system files to the hard drive and ensure
that it (the Hard disk) is bootable. If "sys-ing" the C drive doesn't
fix things enter the BIOS and try setting the boot order to the hard
dive first and see what happens.

John

mayfriday wrote:


Do you mean at A: type in a:\sys c: , thanks

"John John" wrote:



Start the computer with the Startup boot diskette and issue:

a:\sys c:

John

mayfriday wrote:



My boot sequence is cd rom/floppy/hd. When I last shut down, I did not take
out my floppy disk after saving my work. Now, when I boot up, it says " Boot

from ATAPI cdrom - no bootable cd rom...... To start IBM Product Recovery

Press F11. Invalid system disk, Replace the disk and press any key"

With floppy as the 1st boot and using the WIN98 starup disk, and at A:
SCANDISK C: , it did fix something and reports no bad sectors. However, when
I try to boot up as per normal (without the floppy) , it still give me the
above message " Boot from................ Invalid system disk...........press
anay key". Now,how can I get the pc going again withot going through
reformatting/recovery path as I need my daya? Thanks

system going? Thanks