Hey Guys I was handed down an old win 95 machine .... and I was deleting some stuff and when the computer started back up it goes to a black screen and says "invalid system disk replace the disk and press any key" Problem is I dont have the disk and I would rather just upgrade to win 98. I have the win 98 boot disk as well as the cdrom of the Operateing system. When I try to install It goes fine untile it gets to the windows 98 welcome screen and then gives the stop you already have another os on your pc.......so how can I wipe the harddrive clean and just by pass this annoyance all together? Thanks JIM

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The setup program found a copy of WIN.COM that was not the same as the one on the disk. That's all it does to recognize the OS.

Just delete (or rename) WIN.COM in the C:\WINDOWS folder.

However, the invalid system disk message can be caused by an old CMOS battery. If you somehow deleted DOS (which I have a couple times) all you need to do is boot from a DOS disk in A: and,

SYS C:

That will reestablish the 2 hidden files at the start of the drive that DOS needs.


On Tuesday, May 29, 2007 at 10:08 am, Jim wrote:
>Hey Guys
>I was handed down an old win 95 machine .... and I was deleting some stuff and when
>the computer started back up it goes to a black screen and says "invalid system disk
>replace the disk and press any key"
>
>Problem is I dont have the disk and I would rather just upgrade to win 98. I have
>the win 98 boot disk as well as the cdrom of the Operateing system. When I try to
>install It goes fine untile it gets to the windows 98 welcome screen and then gives
>the stop you already have another os on your pc.......so how can I wipe the harddrive
>clean and just by pass this annoyance all together?
>Thanks
>JIM

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Hi Jim.

Its always advisable to do a clean install of any operating system. You need Boot 
Disk with CD Rom drivers.

If your Win98 boot disk has CD Rom drivers then you are ok. You will need Format.com 
to wipe the drive clean and check for errors.

If its partially installed Win98 then start you computer up in DOS mode by hold down 
the Ctrl key as it boots. Select Command Prompt Only. Type cd c:\windows\command 
then Dir *.com to see if Format.com is in there. If it shows up the type Copy 
Format.com A: While you are in that folder you can Copy Fdisk.exe A:. 
Copy these 2 files on to your boot disk.

If you've use the boot disk before then the BIOS is set to boot from floppy first. 
Restart you comp with the boot disk inserted. When it shows A:\ put the Win98 CD 
in the drive and type D: and enter or what ever the drive letter is. At the D:\ just 
type Dir to list the files on the CD root. If they list ok the go back to 
the floppy disk A: and type Format C: and follow the instructions. 
Once formatted change back the D: and just type Setup to start the Win98 install.

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Thanks guys I managed to get things going smoothly... It booted up nicely!


On Wednesday, May 30, 2007 at 4:48 am, Keith Stanier wrote:
>Hi Jim.
>
>Its always advisable to do a clean install of any operating system. You need Boot
>Disk with CD Rom drivers.
>
>If your Win98 boot disk has CD Rom drivers then you are ok. You will need Format.com
>to wipe the drive clean and check for errors.
>
>If its partially installed Win98 then start you computer up in DOS mode by hold down
>the Ctrl key as it boots. Select Command Prompt Only. Type cd c:\windows\command
>then Dir *.com to see if Format.com is in there. If it shows up the type Copy
>Format.com A: While you are in that folder you can Copy Fdisk.exe A:.
>Copy these 2 files on to your boot disk.
>
>If you've use the boot disk before then the BIOS is set to boot from floppy first.
>Restart you comp with the boot disk inserted. When it shows A:\ put the Win98 CD
>in the drive and type D: and enter or what ever the drive letter is. At the D:\ just
>type Dir to list the files on the CD root. If they list ok the go back to
>the floppy disk A: and type Format C: and follow the instructions.
>Once formatted change back the D: and just type Setup to start the Win98 install.

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