Invalid System Disk

[seanwall]

I recently partitioned my hard drive and when the computer went to log on to window a blue scree apeared saying Fatal system error so i restarted the PC and no all i get is a black screen saying invalid system disk.

 

My PC doesnt have a flooy drive so i can not creat and use the floopy boot disk.

i have tried to run my microsft windows XP installation disk but when it says Press any key to boot from CD i try pressing any of the keys before the 5 dots apprear but it doesnt work and it then says:

INVALID SYSTEM DISK

REPLACE THE DISK AND PRESS ANY KEY

 

So insert another windows xp disk but when i press any of the key nothing happens.

[SS]

Can I just clarify what you mean when you say you "partitioned" your hard drive?

 

Partitioning or re-partitioning usually leaves you with blank partitions, which would explain the "Invalid system disk" message. (There are tools that will repartition a disk without affecting the contents though, which is why I ask.)

 

As for why you can't boot from the Windows XP disk - odd. You are seeing the correct message ("Press any key") but the only reason I can think of for this not working is either that you aren't pressing it quick enough (which doesn't seem to be the case from what you say) or you have a keyboard fault which means the PC is never registering the key press. Your PC then thinks you don't want to boot from the CD but from the hard drive so you receive the "Invalid system disk" message again.

 

Although it sounds like it is, check your BIOS is correctly set to boot from your CD-ROM drive: this link is useful; http://www.hiren.info/pages/bios-boot-cdrom

[seanwall]

Thanks but i managed to get it to boot from the disk in the end

but i do have another problem i partitioned my hard drive from 250GB to 150GB and 100GB but when i load up my computer i can only see one of the drives which is the 100GB one is the a way to be able to access both of them

i have check disk managment and it show two partitions when says system and the other says partition unknown.

[SS]

A newly created partition is just a blank space on a disk. Two things need to happen after this. 1) you need to set it up as a logical drive in Windows (this should give it a drive letter, e.g. D:, Windows should take care of this itself), 2) it needs to be formatted.

 

Both of these tasks can be achieved through Disk Management. I suggest reading this to guide you through the process: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309000/

 

If you are given the choice, I recommend formatting your new partition as NTFS, rather than FAT32.

 

If you want to ask more questions, feel free.

[seanwall]

hi

thanks for reply

i have read what you have said but is there another to access the other partition as i dont really want to over write it at the moment

[SS]

So is there data on the 150GB partition? Did it used to work and now it doesn't? I thought this was a new partition which wasn't showing up in Windows.

 

It would be very odd for a partition to corrupt to the point where it wasn't recognised at all.