Invalid Drive Specification (C:) on Compaq EVO

[r0nn13]

I am using a Compaq EVO 510 with WinXP Pro. When I try and use the WinXP boot disk to boot into DOS I am unable to use the C: drive. The error message Invalid Drive Specification is given. I need to get access to the C: drive from DOS to replace a corrupt dll file as the system won’t boot into Windows. The hard drive is confirmed to be fully functional after using the IDE test and I was wondering if there is a work around or solution to this problem. I have tried MSDOS, Win95, Win98, WinXP boot disks but to no avail B-(

 

[Mulga]

Most probably the system is using the NTFS file system rather than FAT32. This is the default when installing XP and most system builders use it. Unfortunately NTFS partitions cannot be accessed from any flavour of DOS. There are NTFS boot disks available, I would suggest trying

http://www.bootdisk.com

Help us to help you, please post back and tell us if this helped.
All things are possible except skiing through a revolving door.

 

[Technician]

If you have another system with NT, 2000 or XP. Remove the hard drive from you Compaq Evo and put it into this system as a second drive.

 

[RSA]

I don't know if you have solved your problem or not, but there are usilities to view NTFS partitions from DOS, some commercial ones can also write to these partitions as well.

Try a search on google for NTFS2DOS, the company that does this used to offer a free download to view NTFS from boot floppies (such as a Windows 98 boot disk), although to write to the partition, you have to buy the full product.

Even if you have solved the problem, this may be of use to others.