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This is a Toshiba 650 CT laptop 150mhz 80 meg ram (max).
It had Windows 95 on it, but I wanted to upgrade several things like explorer, outlook, msn ect..., but all require 98 or better. So I got me a 98se disk and upgraded it. In the middle of the upgrade my power was diconnected. When I resumed it would only boot to c:/ , no windows would come up because do to space on the hard drive I choose not to save those inportant Win 95 sytem files to backup. I didn't think I would need them since I was trading up and didn't have room for then either.
Anyway, I choose to start over and I did an c:/format /q to it and cleared the hard drive, but Win 95 nor 98 supported my cd-rom so in the midts of trying to install a driver for it, it stopped reading from the floppy.
Now when I turn it on it goes like this:
--------------------------Black Screen--------------------------------
----------------------------Flash---------------------------------------

(C) Copyright 1996 Toshiba Corp. All rights reserved.
Self Test. . .
Memory Test 81664kb (starts at 0 and quickly goes up to 81664kb)
Test Complete

Invalid system disk
Replace the disk, and then press any key

Now no matter what I do or what disk I put it in, if I touch anything it just comes right back. Over and over again

I can hold the escape key while it does it's test and go into the bios, which I have changed. FDD-HDD and HDD-FDD. As well as the load default settings, save and exit, but it doesn't seem to matter. It will only give me the same thing. HELP me before my wife goes and calls me an Invalid system disk Replace the disk, and then press any key on me. Because it was her computer, before I hid it in the closet, last week so if you want to help me save my marriage hurry!!!! She thinks I am having a friend upgrade it to 98 for her birthday in 2 weeks.

Does this laptop support both a floppy drive and a CDROM drive, both at the same time, or are they swappable? (ie; only one at a time, one bay, etc.)

If you hadn't formatted the drive, a recovery would have been increasingly possible.

Is the floppy drive currently set as the first boot device in the bios?

The floppy and the cd-rom are both external. The floppy goes to a special port on one side while the cd-rom goes to the printer port at the back. I did do a c:format /q on it and it did wipe the hard drive of it's files, but it just wouldn't accept anything after that. So I believe the format was sucessful and recovery would not be an option, but I am willing to try anything at this point.

Yes the floppy is set as the first boot right now, and it will initialize the drive, you can here it sling the cover open on the disk. But when I change it, it seems to make no difference at all. And the dish I put doesn't seem to matter either, I believe it never actually trys to read it even though I here it. But I do believe there is a disk I can put in it to make it do something, but I don't know what it would be. I have tried many of them. About20 differrent ones from BOOTDISK.COM and still nothing. Maybe I should go back to DOS?

Sorry to be so long in getting back.

"Maybe I should go back to DOS?"

Not sure what you mean. Bootdisks are DOS.

If you've tried many bootdisks and none work, the odds are either;

the bios isn't set to boot from the floppy first
Try this Toshiba setup utility. Download the file, put a known good floppy disk in the A: drive, and then run the file to create the disk on your floppy. Then boot the problem machine with it. (*See below)


you're not creating the bootdisks properly
As above, downloaded bootdisk files are image files which must be run to create the bootdisk. If you're just copying the downloaded file to a floppy, it won't work.


the floppy drive has died
Self explanatory.

Does any of this help?

* There's 33 files for your model (DOWNLOADS) at the Toshiba site.

I am not understanding the proper way to create a bootdisk. I now know that just clicking the file I want and instead of choosing save>A:...Will not work, but I don't understand

Download the file, put a known good floppy disk in the A: drive, and then run the file to create the disk on your floppy

If I save the file to say "My Downloads" on this computer, then either choose (1)Open afterwards or even do (2)Start>Run>C:\My Dcuments\My Downlods\tsetup... I get (1)a windows based ms-dos window pop-up and a message that says Illegal operation or (2)BSOD

Can you please explain to me the exact procedure to creat a real bootable boot disk from this computer that will work on the dead one?

I can hear and feel the dead computers floppy trying to work, but with a bad copy of a bootdisk then it will never read it.

And I know how to enter it's bois to change it to seek which drive I want it to seek first which is the floppy then the hard, if I change it the other way (hard first) then I can tell, because I no longer here the floppy engage.

I guess my problem all comes down to not knowing how to correctly copy a file from the internet to a floppy. I have tried to create a start up disk also from this computer. Start>Settings>Control Panel>Add Remove Programs, then choose the start-up tab, but since I am running WinMe here and the dead comp was reformatted already then it will never reconize a WinMe startup disk until I am able to get a C:\> prompt on it then I will be left with trying to get it's cd-rom drivers loaded so it will read from it then I can install Windows back. I have a leagal copy (original) of all Windows I.E. 95,98,98se,and Me. For my best results I will attempt to just replace 95 on the dead one. Since of it's limitations (small hard drive and 80 meg ram) I was pushing it by attempting to put 98se on it to begin with, which got me into this mess. At this point I would be happy just to see a c:\> on it again.

"Can you please explain to me the exact procedure to creat a real bootable boot disk from this computer that will work on the dead one?"

OK. Download this bootdisk image file.
Save it to the desktop.
Put a floppy in your A: drive.
Then click or double-click on the downloaded WIN98SE.EXE file on the desktop to run it.

It will take a minute or two as this image file;
1)formats the floppy disk,
2)writes the files to the floppy, then
3)verifies that the files were written correctly.

You should end up with a (proper) Win98SE bootdisk. If the problem machine's bios is set for the floppy drive as the first boot device, there should be no problems to boot the machine. Even if the bios/cmos battery has died and the bios has reverted to factory defaults, once power is applied, booting from the floppy drive first is usually one of those defaults.

The above procedure is general (basically the same) for pretty well all download bootdisk/bootcd files.

If you get the same errors with the above image file, please note the exact message and post it here.

PERFECT You are awesome, now all I need to do it to get it to reconize this cd-rom back pack so I can re-install windows to it. Any suggestions? It is a Fujitsu CD-Rom Drive Model 18110 Made by Microsolutions.

I just went back and reread your hardware geometry;

"... while the cd-rom goes to the printer port at the back."

I'll do some looking around for drivers/configuration info for the Fujitsu Model 18110 CD-Rom Drive. Or do you have these already?

We may have to do some config file editing etc. At this point I'm not sure if modifying the floppy files, or sys'ing the hard disk and doing it there is best.

Let me know if you have anything (files, etc) for the CDROM drive.

I got the "supported" driver for this model here http://www.micro-solutions.com/downloads/index.asp and I put it on a floppy. Then I copied it from a to c on the laptop, but it still did not reconize the cd-rom. The file is pnp407d.exe, but it cannot be run in dos

Now I see why I kept getting no results found in my searches. It's a 181100, not 18110.

OK, I'll download the file(s) and check things out.