BleepingComputer.com: Invalid system disk

Hey I have a problem with one of my PC's

Woke up this morning to my mum telling me that the computer wont even boot! My brother said he was on it last night and it froze so he turned it off and it hasn't worked since!

The error that comes up is :

Invalid system disk
Replace the disk, and then press any key

I googled the error message but didnt see alot to help me..

Anyone know how to fix this ?

Any help is appreciated.

Although this sounds like it's totally off the wall, but if your computer has a floppy disk drive, look for a disk in the drive.

If not, I think I would make sure of your BIOS settings as to which drive to boot and that it still even "sees" the drive.

If that does not turn up anything, I would then find out what manufacturer hard drive you have and get their testing utility from their respective support site.

Test the drive and make sure it tests good.

Good Luck,

Check your BIOS boot options, that message comes up when system is set to boot from CD/DVD.

You might also consider changing your CMOS battery...when the battery gets weak, I've seen various wacky error situations reported.

Louis

Thank you for your replies guys.

So far I have tried opening up the computer to see if it was as simple as connection just coming loose but I couldn't see anything wrong.

Then I tried checking the boot order in the BIOS and changing this around a few times didn't work either.

There is no disc in the floppy drive either.


The BIOS doesnt seem to think a hard drive is connected, and even SeaGate tools failed to find it!

I will try replacing the battery tomorrow but I dont hold much hope

If Seagate Tools (assuming it's a Seagate hard drive) failed to find the disk, that's not good.

Ditto for the BIOS.

I'd remove the disk and try to attach it to another system (temporarily)...just for comparative purposes.

Louis

I have just tried replacing the battery but still no luck.


Also I removed my external hard drive and the error message changed from what I orginially posted to:

Primary drive 0 not found
Primary drive 1 not found
Strike F1 to continue, F2 to run the setup utility.


Not holding much hope now but anyone have any ideas?

I will try connecting one of the hard drives to another computer soon.

From the messages you have, this sounds like an older Dell computer.

It also sounds like a hard drive that has gone bad.

The older Dell's were very picky about how the jumpers were set on the hard drive/s. You may want to make sure the hard drive/s that are installed internally in the computer are both set to "cable select" and not master/slave.

This may or may not clear up your issue, but it's worth a try.

Yeh we got this PC back in 2003 I believe, and yes it is a Dell lol.

I will try having a look at how the cables are set, I dont see how this could of changed though as nobody has touched inside the computer for this error to occur.

This post has been edited by DanFerret: 17 June 2009 - 12:41 PM

Normal situation when the Hard Drive goes bad for an older Dell is you will receive these messages that you posted:

Primary drive 0 not found
Primary drive 1 not found
Strike F1 to continue, F2 to run the setup utility.

The computer will automatically look for a drive on both "primary" ide channels when it cannot find the first drive ( referred to as 'Primary Drive 0 ).

If you have tested this drive in another computer and it will not show up under the bios of that computer or this one then you are 99.9% certain that the hard drive has failed completely. All data on the drive is lost and probably only recoverable by a data recovery laboratory or service.

You can also be sure the drive is dead by some of the noises it makes when it is powered up. For Example, Western Digital has what is known as the "click of death". The drive will spin up and click violently and make a heck of a lot of noise.

Seagates, for the most part, will spin up then spin down or spin up, click 3 to 4 times and then spin down.

Maxtors, will just spin up like normal, but then spin right back down.

Each drive has it's normal "I'm dead" noise.

Hope this helps,

Small update on this.

Took out the hard drive and connected it to a different computer and it recognised it fine and all the files are still there.

Tried it back in the broken computer and it wont even get as far as the old error message I was getting.

Im taking it this is a hardware failure then?

Sounds like a booting problem with your system.

If another system can read the disk contents with no problem while the drive is a secondary drive...I would not project a hardware failure for the drive.

Might possibly be a bad CMOS battery impacting the way the BIOS/system functions. Does the BIOS reflect the disk properly?

CMOS Battery Replacement - http://www.liverepair.com/encyclopedia/art...cmosreplace.asp

Connections can become loose, since electricity generates heat...whether anyone has physically handled cables, etc. or not.

Louis

You might also try a different cable for connecting the drive to the motherboard.

This post has been edited by hamluis: 25 June 2009 - 05:06 PM

Already tried a new baterry and it didnt do much.

I will try a different cable tomorrrow and see where that gets me.