Invalid system disk after clean install of XP

Hi all,

I posted this in the hard drive forum but have had no replies yet. I was hoping some here might have an idea. Here's the post:

I just recently did a clean install of Win XP and now I'm getting an invalid system disk error on boot-up. When I hit a key after this message, it continues on and boots up XP. When I did the clean install, I had to change the boot sequence of my system since setup cannot be run from DOS and I needed to boot the system from the CD to install XP. Well, since I changed the boot sequence, the CD would loop into the Win XP setup and never let the hard drive continue the installation. So, in the middle of the installation, I accidentally opened the CD-ROM drive during boot up and got the invalid system disk error. So, I continued by hitting a key and continued the installation. After that, I changed the boot sequence in BIOS back to floppy, hard drive, then CD. Now every time I boot up, I get the error message. For kicks, I started the installation over again to see if I could correct the error by deleting the C: partion, recreating it, and *not* formatting it so it would skip to the CD and not require me to mess with the boot sequence in BIOS. Well, I completed the installation and the same error occurs. What gives? Thanks for any help!

But I am booting to the hard drive. That's the problem. The installation is complete, but before the hard drive completes the boot, the error message comes up. The floppy drive light is not on at this point as well. Nothing is being accessed at this point, but the message pops up. What could be causing this?

Ok, after reading your post again, I understand that you are saying that I should change the BIOS to boot up the hard drive as the first device. I've tried that and the same thing happens.
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by namatoki on 10/29/01 11:48 PM.</EM></FONT></P>