"Invalid system disk" (was: [gibberish]) Thursday, October 2, 2008 at 10:23 am Windows 98 Annoyances Discussion Forum Posted by gewg_ (4444 messages posted) The first 2 paragraphs here are worth reading: http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/win98/1217046552 |'Invalid system disk Replace the disk, and then press any key' | In the future, if you get an **error message**, include that in your FIRST post. You've taken any floppy media out of that drive, of course. If all or part of DOS's kernel is missing from the hard drive, you could try replacing that: http://annoyances.org/exec/forum/win98/1057110095 |i press F8 to try to enter the option menu from where i can access dos |but that doesnt show up! |[...]pressing the ctrl key also didnt do anything. |[...]i found out that F10 enters me into 'computer setup' | Now that you can access CMOS Setup, tweak Boot Precedence so that A: is *first*, put in a bootable DOS floppy, and restart the box. |is the bios and computer setup the same thing? | NO (though many ignorant people try to use them interchangeably). BIOS == Basic Input/Output System, a set of hardware-level calls used by bare-metal programmers and contained in ROM. In an IBM-compatible computer, the same physical chip[1] contains the "Bootloader" which allows the computer to "pull itself up by its bootstraps". That chip is READ-ONLY Memory. (You can't *write* to it without special steps.) A completely seperate chip is called "CMOS RAM". It is battery-backed-up Static Random Access Memory. This is where the hardware configuration for the computer is stored. Many people on forums don't know the difference between any 2 of these 3 ideas and toss around the term "BIOS" like they know what they are talking about. [1] Compaq, the first folks to clone the IBM-PC, don't do it this way. Their BIOS uses a HDD partition, so saying "BIOS" to a Compaq owner when talking about "CMOS Setup" adds another dimension to the nonsense. Written in response to: re: How to boot install windows 98 through network? (Ali: Thursday, October 2, 2008 at 12:50 am) There are presently no replies to this message. All messages in this thread [show all] How to boot install windows 98 through network? (Ali: Tue, Sep 30, 2008, 9:31 am) re: How to boot install windows 98 through network? (Keith Stanier: Tue, Sep 30, 2008, 10:36 am) re: How to boot install windows 98 through network? (Ali: Wed, Oct 1, 2008, 11:51 am) re: How to boot install windows 98 through network? (Keith Stanier: Wed, Oct 1, 2008, 2:20 pm) re: How to boot install windows 98 through network? (gewg_: Wed, Oct 1, 2008, 2:35 pm) re: How to boot install windows 98 through network? (Keith Stanier: Wed, Oct 1, 2008, 4:14 pm) re: How to boot install windows 98 through network? (Ali: Thu, Oct 2, 2008, 12:50 am) "Invalid system disk" (was: [gibberish]) (gewg_: Thu, Oct 2, 2008, 10:23 am) Reply or follow-up to this message Search this forum Start a new thread on a different subject Report abuse of the forum Return to the Windows 98 Discussion Forum