Hello everyone,

I am pretty good with computers and stuff, but I have been having a problem now for a few months trying to boot up an old 486-DX 100 HMz computer.

It is a hack computer, with rogue parts making it up. It used to work great when I set it up for my little sister to do school work on, but now it is goofed up. Real bad.

Its gutted right now, just a motherboard and power supply, etc. I have 2 seperate Winbond IDE controller cards, one of which I just picked up tonight while getting a brand new Flopp Disk drive. A few of the primary specs of the new controller are:

Winbond IDE/Floppy Controller
Winbond Chip - W3758P

Data Technology Chips
DTC2278VL and DTC-805

The old card is an almost exact duplicate, differing in that it offers two IDE pinouts rather than one

I have been thru the BIOS extensively, and it should realistically be working just fine with the specifics entered. It is an AMIBIOS 1994 model. Specs as follows:

AMI 486 Vesa Green Bios (v. B)

Processor gives a screen output of:
i486 DX 4 - 100 MHZ CPU

Ok, so heres the problem (if you have made it this far, thanks).
I am trying to get this thing up and running again. I know the motherboard is in good shape, and I have a good idea that my IDE cards are as well. When I turn it on, however, the Drive Light stays on, and the cylinder rotates to no end. I have a brand new Disk Drive, and am getting the same problems.

If I switch the input of the Floppy Cable (flip it around) the drive stays idle, as if it has no power. The light never tunrs on, and the cylinder does not move either.

:confused:

I need to get this going. I need to get the floppy going to install the CD Rom, to install Windows over everything, and so far, I am stuck! I hope someone will be able to relate to my problem and send me some poitive information back. Someone please tell me my 14.95 Disk Drive wasnt in vain!

Thanks to everyone who reads this, and thanks in advance to anyone who can help!

Look at the connectors and find pin 1 on both the floppy drive and the super/io card. The floppy ribbon cable normally has a red stripe on it, which should be next to pin 1 on each when the orientation is correct. Also there may be as many as four connectors on the cable. If, as I assume, you are using a 3 1/2 inch drive, you probably need to use the last connector (after the twist - if there is one) on the cable.

If the light is on and you have the cable the right way round, then maybe the disk is faulty. Have you tried it on another machine? Is it a boot disk? Is the bios set to boot off floppy? Have you set the BIOS drive type to 3.5 1.44MB or whatever is appropriate?

You obviously know nothing of what you are talking about, why did you even respond? As I stated, clearly, I have switched the cable multiple times. I have also stated that I was beyond this problem, and was now having a new error, which now have wrote up as a bad board.

I figure I can swipe a new board cheap, I only need a 486.

You obviously know nothing of what you are talking about, why did you even respond? As I stated, clearly, I have switched the cable multiple times. I have also stated that I was beyond this problem, and was now having a new error, which now have wrote up as a bad board.

That was totally uncalled for, Herbert, was trying to help and possibly did not understand exactly what your problem was, so attacking him is way out of line.

I do not see anywhere that you have a problem other than the one originally stated: the floppy light is constantly on.