Compaq Armada Laptop won't boot - Help!
Discussion
I bought a 2nd hand compaq armada M300 laptop a while ago - I've got an external floppy drive, but no CDRom.
I put the harddrive in my desktop, partitioned the hard drive, then put the win98 CD on the D: partition, put the hard drive back in the laptop, and booted up off the floppy drive. I then ran the windows 98 setup off the d: partition.
The installation went fine, but when it got the the 'reboot the computer' step, it wouldn't boot, and I get the error message:
'Invalid system disk - Replace the disk, and then press any key'
But If I put the drive in my desktop, it boots up fine?
Anyone got any ideas what this could be?
Cheers,
Grant
I put the harddrive in my desktop, partitioned the hard drive, then put the win98 CD on the D: partition, put the hard drive back in the laptop, and booted up off the floppy drive. I then ran the windows 98 setup off the d: partition.
The installation went fine, but when it got the the 'reboot the computer' step, it wouldn't boot, and I get the error message:
'Invalid system disk - Replace the disk, and then press any key'
But If I put the drive in my desktop, it boots up fine?
Anyone got any ideas what this could be?
Cheers,
Grant
Did you remember to SYS the C: drive? Or alternately did you format /s C:?
That could be the culprit...
Just use your boot disk and sys C:
Edited to add: Normally what I do is copy the Win98 disk into a folder called /win98 and then reboot so the computer boots of C: You can then cd to /win98 and run setup from there. Windows really doesn't like being loaded via a bootup to floppy first, especially if C: is not SYSed
ErnestM
>> Edited by ErnestM on Tuesday 27th May 19:34
Further edited to add - of course when you cd you should use forward slash and not / (I need to get away from Unix for a while
)
>> Edited by ErnestM on Tuesday 27th May 19:37
>> Edited by ErnestM on Tuesday 27th May 19:39
That could be the culprit...
Just use your boot disk and sys C:
Edited to add: Normally what I do is copy the Win98 disk into a folder called /win98 and then reboot so the computer boots of C: You can then cd to /win98 and run setup from there. Windows really doesn't like being loaded via a bootup to floppy first, especially if C: is not SYSed
ErnestM
>> Edited by ErnestM on Tuesday 27th May 19:34
Further edited to add - of course when you cd you should use forward slash and not / (I need to get away from Unix for a while
) >> Edited by ErnestM on Tuesday 27th May 19:37
>> Edited by ErnestM on Tuesday 27th May 19:39
woaaahh. If the drive boots fine in your Desktop but doesn't when you put it in your laptop it's not the drive or formatting or anything like that.
It's much more likely that the laptop doesn't recognise the drive anymore. I suspect your bios settings have gone back to default thereby thinking either the drive does not exist or it doesn't recognise it. Check the config in your bios.
Addtionally it could be a missing dos type driver, the armada is a pretty old box and you may find that these have all sorts of little drivers required to get it to boot. Remember this was before the days of plug and pray so you may have to fiddle some more. It may be worth surfing around on the web for a restore disk for the Armada, thsi should have all the essentials.
It's much more likely that the laptop doesn't recognise the drive anymore. I suspect your bios settings have gone back to default thereby thinking either the drive does not exist or it doesn't recognise it. Check the config in your bios.
Addtionally it could be a missing dos type driver, the armada is a pretty old box and you may find that these have all sorts of little drivers required to get it to boot. Remember this was before the days of plug and pray so you may have to fiddle some more. It may be worth surfing around on the web for a restore disk for the Armada, thsi should have all the essentials.
Bottom line - if there is not a boot sector on the partition, it will not reboot. I stand by my previous recommendation: SYS the drive...
...not to say that making sure the proper active partition isn't important as well, but if there is no boot sector (which format /s and SYS both create) all you will get is an error message when the system reboots. The only reason that windows sets up a boot sector when you boot from CD is because you are usually setting up on an unformatted unpartitioned new hard drive and the "preload sequence" for windows does all of the partition creating, formatting and SYSing.
SYS the drive - quickest way.
ErnestM
...not to say that making sure the proper active partition isn't important as well, but if there is no boot sector (which format /s and SYS both create) all you will get is an error message when the system reboots. The only reason that windows sets up a boot sector when you boot from CD is because you are usually setting up on an unformatted unpartitioned new hard drive and the "preload sequence" for windows does all of the partition creating, formatting and SYSing.
SYS the drive - quickest way.
ErnestM
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