I get this error from time to time, even when there is no disk in the computer. There's no CD or floppydisk inserted. To solve the problem, I restart the computer, and all is fine.

I'd rather not go through the problem, and want it solved once and for all. Does anyone know the problem and solution? I already went on Google to see what others said, but no luck.

1. The computer has no viruses. I have NAV.
2. There are no HD (harddrive) problems, according to ScanDisk.
3. All cords and cables are attached to where they should go.
4. The first boot location is on the HD (C, according to BIOS.
5. There are no disks inserted.

After all this, what could be the problem and what can I do? I've heard it could be a slow OS (slower than the BIOS), or a worthless HD. Before I conclue its worthless, I would like to know how to make the OS faster in starting it up (or making the BIOS slower so that the OS can catch up).

My information:
1. I am using Windows 98SE.
2. The primary slave is a Maxtor HD.

Please will you fill in you full system specs in my.TS.forum at the top of the page(click on edit profile)

Why is you Hard drive connected as primary slave?

Regards Howard

I tend to agree with Howard. Ideally whichever HD you boot from likes to be set as the Primary Master as this is the first drive the BIOS sees. You might want to post how many drives you have and how they are jumpered.

I also remember that with Win98 if the machine was shut down with a floppy inserted that this error message would occur as it looks at A:
before any HD's or CD-Roms.

Hope this helps...

patio.

Done.

There are two HDs. Maxtor is the primary slave. The primary master, I believe, is a Western Digital HD.

The first boot location is C:

Some bios have a' turn off floppy search 'as a temp measure.
Can you try another floppy drive ?

I disabled the floppy seek option, and I moved floppy disk to the bottom of the boot order. It is now at boot order #4.

Maybe, but does it matter? I mean, I already disabled floppy seek, and moved floppy-drive to the bottom of the boot order. If I can find another floppy-drive, I'll try it out.

Sonny.. Quote..

"Maybe, but does it matter? I mean, I already disabled floppy seek, and moved floppy-drive to the bottom of the boot order. If I can find another floppy-drive, I'll try it out."

I mentioned turning off Floppy seek as a temporary measure.
Floppy drives are cheap and ,even though not used often when they are needed they still provide an excellent service.
Look through the posts.How many emergency fixes start with the lowly floppy and useless DOS?

If available in your bios, increase the hd delay. Also check that the bios is set to autodetect your hd's and not set to user defined. If set to auto already try user defined.
When you get the error put a floppy start up disk in and check if the hard drive has been found, if not you may have an intermittent fault.

I turned off FDD, and removed Floppy Drive from the boot order completely.
I am trying to diagnose the problem step by step, so if I do find a solution, I will know what the solution was. I don't want to do everything at the same time, because I won't know what the solution was. You know what I am saying?

If I see this error again, I'll try that. I want to see if removing floppy-drive had any effects. I get this error couple of times a week, and I'll wait for it to appear again.

Right now, its set to Autodetect. I'll try the HD delay first, and if that doesn't work, I'll try this.

I had a similar error (today, actually) after installing a 160 GB Maxtor HD with a SATA/ATA 133 controller card (made by Promise, SATA 150 TX2 Plus, chip # PDC20375). HD is atteched to PATA (parallel ATA) (SATA = Serial ATA)

In my case I have 2 WD hard drives installed on the motherboard's IDE controler.
Total 3 hard drives. Maxtor is master, and one WD is master with other WD = slave.

After the install, always got the "Invalid system disk Replace the disk, and then press any key." message.

I hit a key and booted fine after. After a reboot, I had to hit a key again.


My solution was to enter the bios (Phoenix/Award 2003) go to the advanced options and change the "Boot Sequence".

1st Boot Device [CDROM]
2nd Boot Device [HDD-0]
3rd Boot Device [HDD-1}
Boot Other Device [Enabled]

No more message. Normal Boot.

As an extra note, if I have only one WD HD on the MB IDE controller, and the Maxtor on the Promise card, both set as master, I can swap the boot order between one or the other.

Hope this can help you or someone else. I wanted to post this before I forgot.