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Thread ID: 28176 2002-12-12 12:24:00 Uh oh. Win95 won't boot. *Sparky* (311) Press F1
Post ID Timestamp Content User
105486 2002-12-12 12:24:00 Howdy folks.
Having a play on my old 16mb Compaq Prolinea last night running win95. I have a small H drive and C drive. Not much room on H drive so cut and paste a couple of files over to the bigger C drive. Now when I turn it on I get a message saying:

"Invalid system disk.
Replace the disk and then press any key."

There isn't a disk in the A drive. I didn't have a boot disk (silly me) so copied one from Bootdisk.com No luck.

The message is displayed before "Safe Mode" is accessible, so cant get in to put the pasted files back.

Any suggestions on how to fix?
Much appreciated.

If it aint broke, dont fix it.
*Sparky* (311)
105487 2002-12-12 12:38:00 PS: I dont have the original setup disks either. *Sparky* (311)
105488 2002-12-12 13:21:00 Can you remember what files you copied from where to where. -=JM=- (16)
105489 2002-12-12 17:42:00 Hye

In theory you could use MSDOS to replace/move/copy over the files that you copied . . . I've done it countless occasions - thing is MSDOS isn't the most friendliest OS to work with (most stable MS release though :D )

What did you copy over?? - Wasn't explorer . exe or a few . dll files was it?? Because if you want to change your bootup drive your going to have to edit the registry (Learnt that the hard way) - otherwise you get the "Invalid System Disk . . . . System Disk not present . . . . Registry Error Messages"



CyberChuck
cyberchuck (173)
105490 2002-12-12 19:21:00 How about putting those files back again and/or restoring the last known good copy of the registry?

The Registry FAQ tells you how if you need a refresher .
Susan B (19)
105491 2002-12-12 19:29:00 From memory, an 'H' drive was the host drive for a compressed volume. The 'C' drive was a compressed file on the disk, managed by the compression software. Both 'H' and 'C' "drives" are on the same volume. The 'H' drive appears only sufficiently large enough to hold the startup files, after which the compression software handles the 'C' drive. If you have moved files from the 'H' drive, you have probably moved essential boot files into the compressed volume.

The only way to recover, then would be a boot disk with the same compression software installed, but I think there are installation specific parameters that have to be known for a successful boot.
wuppo (41)
105492 2002-12-12 19:34:00 You got it wuppo. Drive H was the default drive letter after you compressed your hard drive. The C: would then be a big file on H: and the only files that were usually usuable on H: were boot / system files and the windows swap file (which wouldn't work on a compressed drive) CYaBro (73)
105493 2002-12-13 05:41:00 Thanks for the good info guys.

JM: Sort of, but not exactly.
cyberchuck: If I could access C drive, I could put them back, but I cant even get to safe mode. All I can get, by interrupting the wrong bootdisk, is a:\ Not much use. If I change to c:\ everything is a bad command.
Susan B: Cant access registry on C drive.

I think wuppo and cyabro hit the nail on the head.
Any more ideas?

A mate at work still has the instal floppies, 24 of them, so might have to do that.
*Sparky* (311)
105494 2002-12-13 06:45:00 Try downloading and creating a dos6.22 (www.bootdisk.com) bootdisk. Boot up to dos and issue the command:

scandisk /mount

If this is successful, you will have a C: drive which is your H: drive in win95, and another drive, which is your C: drive in win95. If this works, try to restore the files that you origionally moved off the H: drive.
wuppo (41)
105495 2002-12-14 01:40:00 It does need the driver for the compressed disk loaded by config.sys . It might be recoverable. It could be simplest to do a reload. :D

That's the trouble with disk compression ... all the eggs are in one basket, and when it is dropped you are in omelette territory.:_| (At worst, scrambled egg time). ;-)
Graham L (2)
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