Installing Windows problem

Zoton

I managed to format the hard drive, and i've set the bios to boot from the cd-rom, however i keep getting an error that the cd is an invalid system disk, regardless of whether there is a cd in the drive or not.
I'm stumped as to what to do.
Help.....please??

fletch

If you have 2 CD-ROM drives, make sure it's in the correct drive....I made this mistake not so long ago & it took me about an hour to realise!
Thought I had destroyed a m8s computer...Phew..

Zoton

Have tried both drives. Doesn't work from either.

dawballz

did you change anything on the drive's jumper settings?
make one is set to master and the other to slave..and i think you'll have to set it in the bios too.

Zoton

Yup, that's all set.
When using a startup disk, there's no option to "setup windows from cd" like there should be.

moridin

Hmmmm, have you installed windows off the CD before? I've used versions of windows where the install CD isn't bootable.

Worst case scenario - go to www.bootdisk.com and download a floppy disk image. That should let you run the setup files from the cd

Sherifu

If you read this article
http://www.theeldergeek.com/slipstreamed_xpsp1_cd.htm
it explains that the disc must have a certain img to be bootable.

If this disc is untried it may not have this image or be scratched.
See if its readable in another pc.


RKM.

stuey

sounds like a weird one. probably siple answer tho. Have you made sure that the partition you are going to install to is set to active. i dont think that, that would cause a problem at this ealry stage. Do you have like a win 98 cd that you could try to boot from. Or even like a Norton 200* antivirus disk to boot from. Just to test the hardware

dabhal

A few things here,
The obvious:
Make sure there is no floppy disk in there.
Windows 95 is not bootable
Older CD-rom drives may not support bootable cd's
Have you got the correct CD? not a service pack!!!
Are there any dodgy partitions that companies like ibm use that completley F^&% up your systems ability to see the MBR so you can't get anything to load.
Not talking down to you but I really don't know you do I?

Dabhal

Zoton

Tried both Win 98 SE and XP pro. It just seems that it wont read the cd-rom.
Both cd-drives are named in the bios though.
Not an IBM or compaq etc. built it myself a few years ago.

Sherifu

I would think you're problem is either

Discs shagged

or

cd-rom shagged

xp disc could be damaged as mentioned
afaik you need a boot disk for 98 here

again id try the xp disc in another pc if possible.
or
try get another cdrom drive.

Hope this helps,
RKM.