My son has an old 300 computer with window's 98 it wasn't working very well and thought a reformat clean it out and get it back to running smoothly. He created a boot disk and cleaned the hard drive. When he went to boot up the computer with the boot disk he get's the message "invalid system disk" We have tried getting into setup but another problem reared it's ugly head. Once setup is open it asks for a password, which would be simple if we knew the password. He bought the computer from a friend that can't remember putting on a password. Is there anyway around this so we can get 98 back on the computer and get it running again? Any help anyone can give would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

Hi,
You may be able to bypass the password and get into the CMOS/BIOS as follows:

The following is step-by-step for entering the computer's CMOS/BIOS computer settings.
Newer computers use the F1, or either F2, or either Delete, or either the Esc key. After re-boot or startup, immediately press down one of these keys, hold down for about 2 seconds, release, they press down for 2 seconds. Continue until it either goes into the settings window, or boots to windows.
If it boots to windows, then shutdown or restart, and try the same thing with one of the other keys.
Older computers use a combination of keys, such as Ctrl Alt Esc, (holding down all three keys at the same time), or Ctrl Alt Shift, or Ctrl Alt Delete.
A Del computer uses DEL key.

After you get to the settings screen, the right hand side of the screen gives instructions on how to navigate around,; such as "the arrow keys" move up and down, or right and left. Esc key takes you back a step back. etc.
If you wish you change a setting, such as the boot sequence, then:
Key down to the "Boot Options" or "Boot Sequence". This tells the computer to boot to the floppy drive, then maybe the CD-ROM, and last, the C:/ prompt, then it automatically boots to windows.
In the "Boot Options" space, some computers say press the Enter key to view the choices.
Select how you want it to boot. A good choice(s) is to boot to all three; i.e. floppy, CD-ROM, then C:.
This will enable you to install the operating system with either a floppy (Boot disc) or the install CD for windows, if you have the CD.

Move the cursor with the keyboad arrows to the Security tab at the top of the Main menu.
Press Enter
And navigate to where it says password, then set it for No Password.

After finishing, just press Esc, and following the directions to either "Save" or "Cancel" (without saving), returning to the normal booting-up process.

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Best wishes,
fredg

Howdy:

If this is a CMOS/BIOS password, then you can use the other suggestion until you are blue in the face and you won't get into the "setup" mode..

Two choices to remove a BIOS/CMOS "setup" password..

a) Check the motherboard manual for a jumper that will clear the CMOS values

b) Pull the CMOS battery for a couple of minutes.

In both cases, the system should be off and make sure you ground yourself before reaching inside the system.

Once that is done, you should be able to go into CMOS and set it up as your wish ie: Boot device sequence.. enable or disable on-board sound or video, etc..

Murray

First, The message "Invalid System Disk" means that the boot disk is not a system disk. You don't say how he created the boot disk or how he cleaned the system. So its hard to say what the exact problem is here. Did he boot from the floppy before? If so and it doesn't work know, then he may have wiped the floppy instead of or along with the hard drive. So the first thing I would is test the floppy on another machine. If it works on the other machine then there may be something wrong with the floppy drive. If it doesn't work then you need a new boot disk.

As for the CMOS password. If you can get to the CMOS Setup screen but need a password to go further or change anything, then an admin password was set. In which case you will need to do as Murray suggested.

In any case the advice from Fred does not apply to your situation so you can ignore it. Seems another instance where Fred didn't read the question and posted technically correct but inappropriate advice.

The old battery out of the system trick should work to get rid of the password to the cmos. But invalid system disk sounds like the disk was either bad or well it didn't copy all the way. If this is a password that comes after the windows start screens etc. you just might have to hit cancel and see if that will do anything, that would eliminate one thing at least if you get to that point.

I don't think a boot disc is really relevant. Once you get the password reset by removing the battery or jumper as others recommended you will have to reload windows. If you have a Windows disk/cd you should be able to boot from it and load the OS. If you do not have a windows disk, a boot disk wouldn't help anyway. You still wouldn't have an operating system. (Unless you have a system backup that you are going to reload.)

Walt,
The question was about reloading Win 98. Win 98 doesn't use a bootable CD. To load Win 98 on a reformatted drive would require a boot disk with CD drivers to run the install from the CD.

The password they are encountering is a Admin password that prevents changing the CMOS, but not booting the PC.

Hi,
I hope you got an answer that works for you out of all this!
Best of luck,
fredg

Thanks for all your help haven't gotten as far as actually putting the OS on the computer yet but I have gotten rid of the password... took the jumper off and plugged it back into two prongs instead of the 3 booted the computer up then turned the computer off put the jumper back to 3 progs again and turned on the computer and voilà no password now all I have to do is get the OS back on and I should be set to go again. I did try once to to boot up with the floppy still got the same error invalid system disk so I'll try making a new boot disk see how that work if it doesn't I'm at a loss. Thanks guys