Unable to perform system recovery

[andyshriver]

A friend recently brought his Gateway Solo 9101 laptop to me to see why it would "not work". As it turns out, he had formatted the HDD on this machine (originally set up with Win98SE) in hopes of being able to reload the OS. Every time he tried to boot from the 98 boot floppy, he would get the error "Invalid system disk - replace the disk, and press any key when ready" after the memory test had run and the drives were detected. I can verify this, because I changed boot sequences accordingly and tried to boot with a variety of boot floppies and CD-ROM disks, including the System Recovery disk provided by the manufacturer -- no joy. I have tried flashing the BIOS, but the same error is displayed when booting from the BIOS flash floppy. The BIOS detects all drives and appears to be functioning normally - what is most likely the problem and the solution?
I thank you all in advance.

 

[micker377]

If bios "sees" the floppy, and floppy is good (try in another 98 machine), and floppy is set for first boot, the only thing left is a bad floppy drive. You may need to use a "cleaning " disk to make the floppy drive respond. By the way, when using a boot disk, make sure it has the "write protect" tab on - if the floppy drive is "bad", it can corrupt the disk. I keep 2 or 3 boot disks handy just for this happening!

 

[wolluf]

So what you're saying is the bios is ignoring the boot sequence you've set - and always trying to boot from the hard drive (which as it has been formatted isn't a valid system disk)? You say you've tried all sorts of floppies & CDs (which presumably work elsewhere) - so that's the conclusion I've reached.

Which means the only way to install an operating system is by connecting the hard drive to another machine (eg, via special IDE adapter or USB enclosure), copy the 98 install files to it and make it bootable (sys it) - I'd also add normal win98 boot floppy files & config files to make it a large boot floppy (in fact if you do this, you don't actually need to copy the install files, as you will have CD support). Then you should be able to boot from hard drive and run setup.

 

[andyshriver]

micker377 & wolluf:
Thank you both for your responses. Your appraisals of my scenario are accurate - the boot floppies & CDs I am using do work just fine in other machines. I will have to try the 3.5" cleaning disk, if for no other reason than to eliminate the possibility of the A: drive being dirty. I hadn't thought of wolluf's surmise that the BIOS was actually ignoring the boot sequence. I believe it is possible the BIOS may have been corrupted or is out-of-date - the version is Award 8.41 which was originally released in 1994 (?!). As for writing boot sector files to the HDD and trying to get it to boot that way, the HDD is IDE, but the port doesn't resemble the conventional 40-pin IDE port. Please forgive my ignorance, but what kind of adapter should I buy?
I thank you both again.

 

[wolluf]

You can buy a special adapter which connects a laptop drive to an ide cable that fits a desktop PC - cost about £5 here in UK (if you just describe what you're doing to a reasonable supplier they'll know what you mean). Alternative is USB enclosure for laptop drives (cost about £15-20 here in uk) - you can fit the drive in the enclosure then connect to USB (preferable usb 2 of course) port in a PC - appears as external drive.

PS. 1994 bios does sound old - will it support 98? (what's the processor, RAM, hard drive)

 

[andyshriver]

Wolluf-
Thanks for the info re. the adapter. The machine in question had 1994 as the original BIOS release date, but I think the revision is dated 1998. I'll know once I look at it again at home this evening (10:30 GMT). It came with Win98SE installed. The processor is a P2(I believe 266MHz), the RAM is 128MB, and the HDD is approx. 4.3GB. I know, for certain, that the unit was purchased new from Gateway in late 1999.
Thanks again.

 

[garebo]

I can tell you from experience with floppy drives that I have about a dozen win98 boot floppy disks. When i get that error message i just keep on putting another disk in until one of them works. The older the floppy drive the more finnicky it gets with which disk it will take.


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