I really don't think the hard drive is bad. It appears to be the
motherboard. You could install the hard drive as a second drive in your
computer and then burn a CD with data off the hard drive. Remember to set
the hard drive as a "slave".

Other options:

Try to find another PIII motherboard ( Ebay ? ) and just replace the
motherboard and reuse all the other components. You need to be careful that
the present CPU and RAM are compatible with the replacement motherboard.

Buy a new P4 motherboard , CPU, RAM, and P4 power supply of at least 350W
(preferably 400+ W) and reuse all the other components. It is probably
easier and cheaper to buy a barebone system.

Buy a new system with Windows XP and install the hard drive as a second
drive. Remember to set the hard drive as a "slave". Then move data from the
second drive to the new hard drive as needed. The second drive could
thereafter serve as a data backup device.

Good luck
Tom Mayer


----- Original Message -----
From: "Dianne" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, September 08, 2005 5:46 PM
Subject: Re: [PCBUILD] WIN Me invalid system disk


Once again, I want to thank all you guys for your time and effort on this
one....
Here is what I tried:  I disconnected all the connectors to all the drives
and rebooted.  I got the message "Invalid boot diskette, Insert Boot
diskette in A:".  Then I went to the BIOS and made sure all the drives were
not being indicated, and changed the A drive to "none installed", when I
rebooted I got "Invalid Boot disk, Insert Boot diskette in A:".  I
reconnected and tried another data cable, it made no difference.  The light
on the a drive is on all the time when it is connected.
OK, if I concede that it IS the Mother board, and therefore the computer
itself (an older model anyway-P3, Windows Me, etc.  How can I get the info
off the hard drive, or have I lost it already?  Will it hurt my computer to
connect this hard drive to it, and try to create a disk of the file info on
it?
Dianne

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