Cant reach DOS prompt using Win 98 boot disk.

[jsh3323]

Hey people,<br>Everytime i boot my PC up with a boot disk so that i can fdisk and format my HD i get an &quot;invalid command com&quot; message and i cant get to a DOS prompt. Have tried different boot disks created from different machines with no luck. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Alt255]

You should check in your CMOS setup to make sure that &quot;Boot from floppy&quot; (or equivalent) is enabled or that the floppy is listed as a bootable drive. <p> <br><a href=mailto: > </a><br><a href=

http://vorpalware.homestead.com/VorpalHome.html>temporary

Vorpalcom home page</a><br>Send me suggestions or comments on my current software project.

 

[Sshaker]

jsh<br>You could have a virus or your floppy drive could have an I/O problem. I once had a similar problem with a Pentium 233 and after MUCH hair pulling I discovered one pin on the CPU was broken...actually burnt. The floppy drive worked every which way but simply would NOT allow PC to boot from floppy disk. Didn't actually come up with an &quot;invalid command.com&quot; error message though. Run a late model virus checker 1st before anything.

 

[tschuy]

The reason the &quot;invalid command.com&quot; is coming up is because your Hard drive and the Win 98 boot disk boot and file structure don't match (IE FAT16 versus FAT32). What you might try to do is get an old DOS 6.22 boot disk and see if you can boot up with it, Fdisk the drive by wiping out the partitions, and not creating new ones. Restart the system with your Win 98 boot disk and then attempt to run Fdisk from that disk.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

 

[Alt255]

Hmmm, I disagree, tschuy. If jsh3323 was able to boot from a valid bootable floppy, the FAT on the HD (or even the presence of an HD) wouldn't matter.<br><br>The &quot;invalid command com&quot; message appears whenever one tries to boot from a disk that doesn't hold an operating system (<b>which</b> OS is unimportant... MS-DOS 3.33 will boot a floppy as well, or better than, MS-DOS 7x).<br> <p> <br><a href=mailto: > </a><br><a href=

http://vorpalcom.netfirms.com>another

temporary Vorpalcom home page</a><br>Send me suggestions or comments on my current software project.

 

[bdux]

Check the order to boot in Advanced settings under CMOS . the order could be set as <br>c , a which means the floppy drive never gets booted up and the hard drive is being booted . the floppy drive will usually light up for a short time but fails to boot the system. <br>also if your hard drive is fdisk earlier with fat32 a floppy that has fat like win95a won't see the partion in fdisk ,

 

[dxd]

Will the hard drive boot...I don't think you mentioned that. If the hard drive boots OK and you only get this message when booting from floppy then I would heed the advice from Sshaker.....bad floppy or possible virus.<br><br>

 

[jsh3323]

Update.<br>Thanks for all your suggestions. Tried everything you suggested. When i receive the &quot;invalid command com&quot; message i can hit enter 3 times, it then gives me an A: prompt. The boot disk does load up the diagnostic tools but not the CDROM drivers. <br><br>Aside from this the system does work fine, the hard drive boots and there is no other problems.