ME won't boot

[shirleycarter]

screen reads "invalid system disk"...tried to get into Safe Mode using Control or F8 neither worked.
when turning on goes to Dell Computer Screen then after a minute the "invalid system disk" shows
up.  Before this happened we installed a CD for a router which allowed me to get onto the internet. Then
ran some kind of Web..Spy Ware something...it found some items and was deleting something so stopped
the process and shut down the computer.  When I turned back on I still had the CD for the router in
my computer....took out tried a number of times.......SOUNDS BAD!.....HELP....

[truenorth]

shirleycarter, As you know Bill has long ago stopped supporting Win Me. Not many people on the CH forums have much love for that operating system.However my wife is still using it on one of her computers and swears by it. Do you perchance still have your ME O/S  CD? If you do i will ask her if she can assist you as she is much more familiar with ME than i am.I believe what was happening is that when you got the mesage about "not a system disk" is that your boot sequence detected a CD in the drive on boot up and was expecting an ME CD and couldn't relate to what it had. This can happen as well when a floppy is left in the "A" drive on shutdown and then the computer restarts and won't run. As i understand it you are unable to get into safe mode--is that correct? truenorth
By the way welcome to the CH forums.

[shirleycarter]

thank you so much for taking time to respond...I took my computer to a
computer repair shop yesterday, got a call today saying that everything
was lost on the hard drive, even most of the windows program...he thought it was due to running the webroot spyware which popped up on my computer....I am sad bacause a number of family pictures were lost...I will pick up the computer tomorrow and try to reinstall windows...it cost $60 to find out the hard drive was erased, I don't want to spend more on a 9 year old computer.....again....thanks so much! I think this site is wonderful.

[BC_Programmer]

Hmm... interesting..

I find it odd that I personally have never encountered a drive that seemed to have "wiped" itself or became corrupted, and yet all these techs people visit do...

personally I suspect they simply reinstall the OS without regard to the disk contents.

[truenorth]

Yes indeed i tend to agree with BC.If the hardrive was no longer reusable then it would make more sense what the tech told you.But given that it is still able to be used again is highly suspicious. If you run into trouble with the reinstall feel free to contact us and we shall endeavor to be of whatever assistance you require.I know it is too late for the current episode but as a suggestion get yourself some flash drives and make copies of those things that you value--like your pictures.They make excellent portable cheap backup devices.truenorth

[BC_Programmer]

yes, Flash drives are excellent for backups and transporting data between machines. Just don't do what I did and use a flash drive to store the only copy of important data... I think they know it and decide to fail then. Or in my case "oh, sorry. I accidentally truncated all your files to 4 kilobytes. I know you had more. I lost it." 

[shirleycarter]

I'm fascinated that there are people like you out there willing to share their expertise!   I love this website.   And, yes I will purchase a flash drive.  HOWEVER, I'VE GOT TO ASK, "WOULD IT DO ANY GOOD TO TAKE IT TO ANOTHER COMPUTER TECH TO SEE IF THEY COULD RETRIEVE MY PICTURES?"  I know, "I'm still in denial, I'll get over it".

[truenorth]

I would only suggest that option if the following conditions were present:
1.You knew and trusted the technician.
2.They wouldn't charge you anything to test the condition of the hard drive.
At this point i don't advocate spending any more of your hard earned money on this issue. There is another way you can try to see what if anything remains on that hard drive and that  is if you have the option to remove it and place it in another computer that has an available bay for it. I don't think it has been established thus far as to whether this is a SATA or an IDE HDD. Assuming it is an IDE (given the O/S you are using that is the most likely). Place it as a slave in the other machine and see what if anything is on it. While you have it there you could also run a diagnostic test on it using the MFGR. diagnostic tool from their web site to see what it finds. At the moment you cannot do that on the computer it is in as i understand it that computer has no O/S installed so you cannot do very much.If you need any help with any of this let us know.truenorth

[patio]

I wholeheartedly agree with TrueNorth's suggestions...

Slave Drive Tutorial

Suggest finding a friend who has installed/replaced hard drives before...

[Cityscape]

I would only suggest that option if the following conditions were present:
1.You knew and trusted the technician.
2.They wouldn't charge you anything to test the condition of the hard drive.
At this point i don't advocate spending any more of your hard earned money on this issue. There is another way you can try to see what if anything remains on that hard drive and that  is if you have the option to remove it and place it in another computer that has an available bay for it. I don't think it has been established thus far as to whether this is a SATA or an IDE HDD. Assuming it is an IDE (given the O/S you are using that is the most likely). Place it as a slave in the other machine and see what if anything is on it. While you have it there you could also run a diagnostic test on it using the MFGR. diagnostic tool from their web site to see what it finds. At the moment you cannot do that on the computer it is in as i understand it that computer has no O/S installed so you cannot do very much.If you need any help with any of this let us know.truenorth

Another way is use a Linux Live CD to check.
I read that many technicians do this.

Just don't do what I did and use a flash drive to store the only copy of important data...

Flash memory is known to only last a number of years.
And you should never defrag them although most people do. Defraging will reduce lifspan.

[BC_Programmer]

it's not a number of years but rather a certain number of writes.

[Cityscape]

it's not a number of years but rather a certain number of writes.

Sorry, that's true.....that's why I said defraging was bad.
Although under average conditions they should only last 5-7 years (according to my sources).

[patio]

Defragging is not bad.
Where do you get this idea from ? ?

[Cityscape]

I read it in Maximum PC.
They said defraging was bad because flash memory is a chip and is not like a normal HDD. And that defraging would only reduce lifespan.

[BC_Programmer]

Maximum PC is an Awful PC magazine, IMO.

the only way it would do so is because of the additional writes.

On the other hand the same argument can be used with normal hard drives, since it can be said that it wears out the actuators.