command.com & invalid media

This has been cropping up an awful lot - and now its my turn (well a friends).

Windows 98SE
installed for 6 months

after switching on it gives the error type the path to command.com
if I boot from floppy and access c: it says invalid media.

the fdisk/mbr, sys c: doesnt help.

I cant use partition maic due to a partition table error.
Is there any utility I can use to recover the partition table - I only want to get some data files off this machine before reformatting it.

Thanks for reading (and laughing)

Hi NorthernBloke,

If you have access to a recent copy of Norton Utilities, the Disk Doctor component in that package may be able to get you straightened out. It has been able to do some similar such tasks for me along the way. Wouldn't be without it!

Happy computing! https://discussions.virtualdr.com/

Limerick
https://discussions.virtualdr.com/

Try downloading this one http://www.esiea.fr/public_html/Chri...stdisk-3.5.zip

It's from http://www.esiea.fr/public_html/Chri.../testdisk.html and making a boot floppy with the files on it (the testdisk.exe and the cwsdpmi.exe files from the DOS directory in the zip)

IS the bios detecting this drive properly??
Did it have a drive overlay?
Do you think the drive is on the way out the door and you should run the mfg's low level diagnostics (if so what make and model)?


[This message has been edited by IMM (edited 07-25-2001).]