Resolved System Disk Error

When I try to boot My friends system I get this message. Updating ESCD: Successful, Verifying DMI Pool, Invalid System Disk, Replace Disk and press any key. There are no floppies, CDs or any Disks inserted. I can't boot to the OS(Win ME). The machine is six years old. I tried to find the mothereboard manufacturer but it's nowhere on the MB. It has an Award BIOS. At the top of the board it says ALI M1531 B1 9838 TS05 AAL05890000c Taiwan. All she wants me to do is reinstall the OS. But machine won't let me. I asked her what she did and she replied she tried to reformat and reinstall WinME. and kept getting the above message. I also noticed on the screen I/O Conflict 2F8, Press F1 to continue. Is there any way to fix this. If so, any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

 

went and put win98se oem to disk now if i can get it to the A prompt wish me luck

 

After I tried A:\sys C: I got the C prompt I rebooted from the floppy but it's not giving me an option boot off floppy just start with cd-rom support, start without cd-rom support, and minimal start. I chose start with cd-rom support. At the A:\ prompt format C: it gives the warning all data disk drive c will be lost procede(Y/N)? Y. then it checks existing disk format Recording bad clusters. Complete. Verifying 4.102.5m After this completes there aren't any prompts indicating the drive is being formatted or to insert the CD. If I do insert the CD and press enter I get this message. CDR101 Not ready reading drive E. Abort?Retry?Fail?. If I press R it brings me back to CDR101 not ready reading drive E. If I press A it brings me back to the E prompt. I tried FDISK /MBR that didnt work. I also tried this Format C: /S /U it said it formatted, but, I still cannot install the OS. Now when I go to the startup screen I get Verifying DMI Pool Data right under that It reads Microsoft(R) Windows 98 (Copywright Microsoft Corp. 1981-1999. Then I get the C:\> prompt but it only lets me change the prompt to A:\>. Should I Format C:\ now or will it go back to what was before as i described in my first post. If I enter anything under the c prompt I get messages such as: Invalid Drive Specification, Bad Command or File Name. Any suggestions.

 

Your last format /c /u was all the format you need.
If the computer doesn't boot from the CD, it needs the boot order rearranged. Go to the BIOS setup program by tapping the delete key when it starts to boot until you see the bios setup screen and find the boot order. Read the directions on the screen carefully, and change the order to cd, floppy, and last the hard disk. Then save your change and try again with the CD in the drive.

 

I already tried changing the boot order but I tried it again and got the same CDR101 Not Ready Reading Drive E. This machine has 32MB ram a Cyrix M2/IBM 6x86mx 300 CPU. The machine is six years old she said it would not complete a defrag and it started running real slow. The thing was in storage for about a year and she just got it out. I did all the work on it and it used to run great until Optimum Online installed an ethernet card that froze the computer. I took the card out and reinstalled it and it worked fine. I even tried to uninstall the card and load the OS but without any sucess. She has original Win 98 floppy and CD in storage. Maybe I'll have to install that way and then upgrade to Win ME. That's my last shot at it as I am out of ideas. Unless you or anyone else can think of anything different other than what I've already tried.

 

That thing needs some RAM. Like about 128 MB more.

 

Would that give me Invalid Drive Specification, CDR101 Not Ready Reading Drive E, Invalid System Disk. I was wondering if the HDD is finally seeing its last days, if so would that prevent the OS from loading and giving me all the error messages. The power supply seems fine. I checked all the connections they're ok. If I disconnected the CD-ROM drive and restarted without CD-ROM support then shut down reconnected the CD-ROM drive, and restarted would that reset the drive. There are two CD-ROM drives a CD-R/RW and a CD-ROM. Do I disconnect both or just worry about the drive I want to use to load the OS. Also I read somewhere that you can install the drivers without OS present but, I'm not sure how to do this without the documentation I don't really know if she still has it.

 

You might have already tried this but when one hits a real problem machine, smart thing is to pull every card out except the video card. While you're in there, I'd also suggest replacing CMOS battery, clearing CMOS and setting BIOS to default. Then auto detect the hard drive and try starting up again with a 98 boot disk. My suggestion would then be to FDISK the MBR and the drive and then fromat the drive and then try doing an installation. You'll be able to handle an install fine with 32MB of memory and once (if) you get it, then you can make other decisions as to adding memory. And, if you get an OS on it, then you can add back I/O cards and drivers one at a time. The conflict you have seen at 2F8 is a lower level memory address caused by some device who's presence is still being recognized, whether or not the device is still in the machine or the slot.

 

the only card in there besides the ethernet card is the video card. I already tried installation w/o ethernet card. Ialso tried FDISK /MBR no good. I wrote down all of the BIOS settings. We reformatted, installed before and never had this problem. Her Original OS was Win 98 she has the floppy and OS CD. When we went with WinME I installed it from Win ME disks. I made coppies for her just in case anything happened. I ran out of room in my den so I stored many of my CDs and I cant find the original ME OS disks anywhere. Do you think the copies could be the problem and if so will I be able to format and install the oS form Her Original Win98 floppy and OS CD.

 

I'll try it again.

Pull every card out except the video card. While you're in there, I'd also suggest replacing CMOS battery, clearing CMOS and setting BIOS to default. Then auto detect the hard drive and try starting up again with a 98 boot disk. My suggestion would then be to FDISK the MBR and the drive and then format the drive and then try doing an installation.

 

FDISK /MBR and the drive it said it could not be corrected. so I tried to format anyway and got as far as before. I "m getting annoyed I never had this much trouble with any machine and I've done lots of them from building to ripping out drives, cards , etc. To installing all kinds of software, and Operating Systems. But, now I'm obsessed with getting this up and running. I'm not ready to give up yet, unless the owner of the machine wants me to. So with that in mind. Any other suggestions?

 

More.

From Symantec:
Error: "CDR101: Not Ready Reading Drive X, Abort, Retry, Fail "

Situation:
While restoring an image from a CD ROM drive, Ghost displays the error message "Not ready reading drive X," where X is the letter of your CD-ROM drive.

Solution:
The image file on the CD is not readable. To verify this, go into DOS and copy the image file from the CD to the hard drive. The same error should appear. This can occur when the CD is dirty.

From: http://www.the-it-mercenary.com/forums/Help/posts/4486.html

CDR101: Not Ready Reading Drive "X ". Abort, Retry, Fail?: This error has many causes. It could be that the disc was just inserted and has not had time to "spin up." In this case, wait a few seconds and hit "R" to retry. If it still does not work, the disc could be unreadable-an audio disc, a CD-i or CD ROM XA disc-or there may be no disc in the drive, an upside down disc, or a damaged disc.

If you are certain that the disc is in the right format, try cleaning it. Look for scratches. When you reinsert it, make sure that the caddy is closed completely and is not damaged and that there are no foreign objects (such as labels) stuck in the caddy or the drive. Try another caddy, and then try another disc. If the second disc cannot be read, there may be a problem in the software setup. Restart your computer. If it still doesn't work, reinstall Operating system.

If available, I'd replace the CD drivewith a known good one and try again.

 

There isn't an OS on the machine It will only let me format if i use this command format C: /S/U when it completes I get an A:\> prompt. I do not get a prompt to insert the OS CD so I can Install it. I've used this disk before on this machine and all went well. I cleaned the CD with Skip DR Motorized version. Still nothing

 

Summarizing

When you format c you do it from a:> and when format finishes it returns you to a:> normally. At that time you can type
c:
and get a c:> prompt if all went well. Then (at c:>) you should type
dir
and see the statistics for c.

There is not yet a program on c that will ask you to do anything. Now you should remove the floppy, put the CD in and reboot, and if you have a good CD and a good CD drive, you should see the CD booting, if it's first in the boot order.

 

Yes - unless the CDROM is hosed. I've run into a lot of older machines & drives that can't accurately read copied CD's - Sparrow already suggested throwing a different CDROM in there and I'd call that good advice. You can try the old one again after you get an OS on there.

I also must question why you want to put ME on there? If you have 98se, its a much better OS and I'd suggest you to make a folder, copy the Disc to the HDD and install from there. If you can't copy the CD to the HDD then you know the CDROM is hosed unless you're using a burned copy of 98se.

You also didn't acknowledge removing that network card, clearing CMOS and resetting BIOS to setup defaults. In my book, when you hit the wall you start with basics and go from there - in the long run its much faster than trying to save yourself some time by skipping what could be the primary cause of all your problems. Still got your BIOS cached? - if any errant program writes into this memory area, it will result in a system crash. Perhaps (longshot, but) this was part of your original problem.

Not trying to preach here, just trying to encourage you to skip the shortcutting and be thorough, thus eliminating many unknowns. Good luck.

 

I started over with fdisk got the Win ME OS up and Running. I keep getting a Error Dialog Box Titled Advanced INF Install that contains the following error. ERROR: could not locate INF file 'E:\content\Win9x\WinME\WinMEsetRP.inf.' Any idea what this is and how to correct it. E:\ is the CD-R/RW could it be driver related. The only thing I did to the system was install MS Updates from the MS Windows Security Update CD(February 2004). I read somewhere that it's the Security CD causing the error message.

 

I can't find that error or file in a google search.

You can try system restore and use a restore point dated just before you installed the upgrades. That may eliminate the message, but you will also lose the upgrades. You can then try to apply the upgrades singly, testing for the message after each is installed, and remove the offending one.

That's a lot of work and I doubt I'd do it. I find that if I have good firewall and antivirus programs and use spybot and adaware regularly, I get along ok without getting every upgrade, even though the "experts" probably shudder when I say that. Of course, I don't use IE or OE, but rather mozilla.

 

Another homemade CD?

setRP is assembler code and it appears that the CDROM just couldn't read the drive and install E:\content\Win9x\WinME\WinMEsetRP.inf

Why don't you search for that file using another machine with a better CDROM drive to read the CD and then copy the file to a floppy and install from the floppy.

Edit: should probably be copied & pasted

 

It is the MS Security Update CD I took it out of the drive too soon. Its been running 14hrs installing updates. How long does the CD take to install the updates. I found that entry by going to msconfig\startup so if I stop the updates, remove it from the startup list and do a System Restore I shouldn't get the error anymore. Then let owner of the machine install whatever updates she wants installed.