Windows 7: Newly built computer, black screen Invalid system disk.

Hey everyone!



This is the first computer I have built. Everything installed without a problem but when I turn on my computer a black screen pops up saying "Invalid System Disk. Replace disk and press any key." The screen stopped showing up randomly and now it is back. What is making it pop up and what can I do to make it stop?
I also put a CD-ROM reader in from my other computer whose motherboard fried. It has an IDE port and works well if I use an adapter for it. I bought a IDE to SATA converter and my computer is not recognizing it at all. Why not?

Thanks,
Chaps2013

Hello chaps2013 Welcome to SF!

When you say you installed a CD-ROM reader that implies you moved an cd drive not dvd drive or dvd burner into the new case! Windows Vista and newer like 7 now come on dvd disks not cds anymore! The invalid message is likely from the wrong type of disk not being able to be read!

Replacement with a dvd burner and the option to consider creating a USB Installation Key with a 4gb or larger usb flash drive can see Windows installed however. You are not going to be left out in the dark with a simple drive change since a dvd drive can be found for low prices at this time.

In addition to having a DVD drive, or writing the ISO to flash stick using Universal USB Installer,

where did you get Windows 7? How is it burned to disk?

Is the DVD drive set first to boot in BIOS setup? Does it prompt to Press any Key.

If not try the flash stick booting using the one-time BIOS BOot Menu key, while HD is set first to boot in BIOS setup.

Same of those IDE to SATA converter, not work.

Most boards even now still have one ide channel available. if you have a good ide cable try plugging the drive in with that. If the installation suddenly takes off you will then now the ide to sata adapter you are using for the hard drive needs to be tossed.

Thank you everyone for your help.
The problem ended up being USB was the first thing to boot in my BIOS. I changed the list for my HD to boot first thing. I have not seen the message pop up since.
About my CD Drive, it does also read DVDs and I do believe burn them. I did infact take the drive from an old case (MB died) and put it in the new one. I installed Windows 7 off of an installation disc and did not have any problems while installing (I was using an USB adapter to install my software). The computer still is not recognizing the drive. The drive is connected to the MB by a ATA cable in the second spot (I have six connections). If I am reading the posts right converters will not solve the problem?

Again thank you for all of the help!

If the board lacks an ide main connection on the board for optical drives that would have been the only way to run an ide drive on a strictly sata board. But take a look at the board itself which is an MSI what?

Even on a new Micro atx board you generally find one EIDE or PATA connector. You can slave the optical drive to the hard drive or vice versa to plug the drive in directly without any converter in the mix! If the optical drive is being plugged in via usb you then have two spots for ide drives available.

It is a MSI 990FXA-GD80V2 AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD motherboard. What do you mean by slave? Sorry it took me so long to respond. Finals and my job was keeping me busy.

Do you see an IDE port on the mobo which you can plug that OD into?

How did you install Windows 7 from the OD with it connected by USB cable? Did it boot?

Without knowing what board you have as well as what type of hard drive an ide optical drive can be slaved to an existing ide hard drive on the same ribbon cable if the hard drive was already mastered. Generally systems now will see mostly Sata II or SSD drives with the latest boards now being strictly Sata 3 no longer having Sata II ports.

The position on the ide cable itself determines whether is set for Master, Slave, or leaving the pin jumper on the back of an ide drive to the Cable Select position. On an old system where the hard drive was a PATA type or EIDE drive you would move that into another case and may have to plug it in on the middle connector on the ide ribbon cable when another drive which would have been the main OS drive was mastered in order to recover your personal data.

For the present build you have using an ide cable you may have the jumper pin on the wrong position say the pin is on CS or MA for Cable Select or Master while plugged into the middle Slave position or vice versa where the pin was set to Slave in the original case and placed on the master position at the end of the ide cable. If you find the pin on the wrong position that would explain the problems installing Windows with it set that way.