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CUTTERBUCK

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Jan 17, 2004
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Hi all. I was able to acquire a Compaq pentium 3 733 Mhz machine from workfor very little $. It came with no ram or hard drive. I installed ram and hard drive (Windows) '98) from my old P2 machine. When I booted up, the following message appeared. "Invalid system disc. Replace the disc, and press any key". What's wrong? Why won't the P3 read my existing hard drive? :confused: Thanks in advance.
 

papasmerf

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Oct 22, 2002
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CUTTERBUCK said:
Hi all. I was able to acquire a Compaq pentium 3 733 Mhz machine from workfor very little $. It came with no ram or hard drive. I installed ram and hard drive (Windows) '98) from my old P2 machine. When I booted up, the following message appeared. "Invalid system disc. Replace the disc, and press any key". What's wrong? Why won't the P3 read my existing hard drive? :confused: Thanks in advance.
Trying to boot from the CD or A drive
 

Gentle Ben

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Jan 5, 2002
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Did you re imstall windows on the hard drive, or are you trying to use the OS from the original machine(not reccomended as drivers etc are set for original machine)
is there a floppy in the A drive? sounds like there might be
just a few thoughts
 

CUTTERBUCK

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Jan 17, 2004
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Kitchener/Waterloo
Gentle Ben said:
Did you re imstall windows on the hard drive, or are you trying to use the OS from the original machine(not reccomended as drivers etc are set for original machine)
is there a floppy in the A drive? sounds like there might be
just a few thoughts
Re-installing Windows was the answer I recieved from another message board. Sounds like that may be the answer. Yes I was trying to use the OS from the original machine, I figured it would work ok, but what the hell do I know? Thanks.
 

IggyP

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Aug 19, 2004
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You would have to reinstall windows on the new machine... Different motherboard, video card ect... Also make sure to check the bois setting to see that the hard drive is recognized.
 

thewheelman

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Feb 3, 2004
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Compaq used a lot of proprietary memory in those days.
Check to be sure your new memory is compatible.

Also if you are swapping in a hard drive with an OS installed on it, you must remove the IDE controller driver if it is not the Standard IDE driver, prior to removing it from the first computer. This setting is in Device manager.
 

Cinema Face

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Mar 1, 2003
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I used to run a computer store where we would build and service clones. We had the same problem whenever we tried to work on a Compaq. We could never do a hard drive upgrade on a Compaq because they do something weird with their hard drives. I understand that the BIOS info is actually located on one of the sectors of the hard drive itself. You can’t just throw a hard drive from another computer into a Compaq without formatting it, using the Compaq utility that only a Compaq authorized service centre would have.

This was some years ago when a Pentium was a considered a good computer. I assume Compaq computers haven’t changed.

I think that’s why that computer was so cheap.
 
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