I have been trying to install MS office 2000 onto my computer.
However I am now unable to start my computer.
The computer is an old P233.

Now when I boot up my computer it gives me this message:

"Invalid System Disk
Replace the disk and then press any key"

NB. There is no floppy disk in the computer.
Also MS Office 2000 did not fully install.

Welcome Dek- Can you get back with us on which O/S you are using? And also, what happened that Office 2K failed to completely install? An error message as you stated above can be caused by a corrupt Master Boot Record on the hard drive. Is the hard drive old and tired with bad sectors? Is a Virus possible (they enjoy causing pain in the MBR). Help us out a little here if you can please.

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......Indecision may or may not be my problem......
...... Kickin' A Rock....

A)The operating system is Windows 98.

A) If I recall correctly.
I ran the Windows setup icon.
It went through the motions.
Then it said something like that the computer was going to reboot.
That's when it gave me this problem.

A)The hard disk is fairly old.
I think just over 6yrs.
The computer is only really used for word processing.

A) No Virus is unlikely to be the problem but cannot be certain here.

Q)Couldn't I format the whole disk to get rid of the bad sectors,
once I am in Windows or DOS?

But unfortunately at the moment I am unable to do any of this
because of the nature of error problem.

Dek- All things considered it's time to re-format the HDD. Do you have a Boot Disk (floppy) and a Win98 CD? A clean install of Windoz is in order. Bad sectors are pretty much there for the duration. These are sectors on the HDD that Windoz can't write to because of corruption, etc. Sometimes a low-level re-format can correct some of these as 0's are written on the entire disk. There are many pro's and con's about a low-level format. A plain-jain fresh install should suffice. Let us know how you are geting along. Luck.

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......Indecision may or may not be my problem......
...... Kickin' A Rock....

Eventhough the possibility of having a bad hard disk might be the cause of your problem, you might want to do some other measures before you reformat it(it is a major job and you would lose all your datafiles).
If your computer is old and had been sitting there, I would say your computer might have ran out of battery(automatically had changed the CMOS settings).
First get into your CMOS and check/correct the Harddrive setting and at the same time change the booting sequence to A: and C:. Try to boot and see if it boots up from Hard drive. If not then get your WIN98 Boot disk and boot with A: and try the hard drive contents(C:\dir). If successful, then there is a problem with your MBR and your might be able to transfer the SYS to your c: and that might solve your problem.
If nothing works then you can either do a Fdisk and reformat your harddisk Or wait a little longer see if there is a better advise.

I have went in to CMOS setup.
And since I printed the original cmos setting I have been able to
reset any changes since trying to install office 2000.

I have used a windows boot up disk.
and from there I have transfered sys files.

Now I have a screen with just a c: prompt.

Please help.

Hey,

Type DIR at the C: prompt. Do you get a listing of the data files? If so, type at the prompt:

Fdisk_/mbr

Use a space in place of the underscore used above. That will rewrite the master boot record on the harddrive. Reboot. Let us know what happens.

If that doesn't work, then get back to the C: prompt and type:

Scanreg_/fix

Again, use a space in place of the underscore used above. Reboot. Let us know what happens.

If that doesn't work, then get back to the C: prompt and type:

Scanreg_/restore

Same about the space. Hopefully, you will be presented with a listing of at least five backups of the registry. Choose one to restore that is dated BEFORE you tried to install Office. Let us know what happens.

Good luck.

Big Blue 66


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Woe is me.

[This message has been edited by BigBlue66 (edited 08-08-2001).]

I have tried BigBlue66 suggestions:

Have tried Fdisk_/mbr (where _ substituted for space)
And nothing happens takes me back to c prompt.

Have tired scanreg_/fix
Error message screen, titlesd "MS Registry Checker"
Not enough memory... There is not enough extended memory driver loaded on your computer.
Make sure you have HIMEM.SYS file on disk...

Have tried scanreg_/restore
I was able to restore on of the previous good registry.
Gave me message saying "you have restored a good registry"
... then says you must now restart computer.<<ok-button>>
but the computer doesn't restart instead goes to C: prompt again.

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other things tried suggested by friends.
1)edited autoexec.bat file and typed win.
2) edited config.sys file and typed
DeviceHigh=C:\windows\himem.sys

still no luck