Building a PC, floppy problems

[jamisz]

Hello all,

I am building a new PC and have gotten everything working properly up to the installation of my Datalifeguard Tools 3.5 floppy disk (Hard drive startup disk) that came with my Western Digital hard drive. It is reading "DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER".

I have tried damn near everything I can think of from configuring the BIOS over and over again to buying a new floppy drive and switiching the cables from the motherboard to the drive. I have even went to the Western Digital website and downloaded the Datalifeguard tools myself and copied them to another floppy disk. But still it is reading the same thing..

This is my first time building a computer from scratch, maybe I am missing something simple? Or maybe my motherboard is not reading the floppy drive properly?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

Jason Szczepkowski

[cnm]

You need a special ribbon cable for the floppy drive, with some of the conductors crossed. And not sure it matters, but I always put the crossed end of the cable at the drive.

Also make sure on the mobo that the ribbon cable is attached to the floppy connector, correct way round.

[jamisz]

Thanks for your reply, but I have checked, double checked and triple checked the cable, even replaced it, it is definitly in the right way....

[mjc]

One way to check to see if the floppy drive is the problem is to swap it out for a known working one.

Also for some reason, some motherboards need to have all the floppy settings enabled in BIOS in order for it to work, make sure that the floppy is set first in the boot order in BIOS.

[cnm]

Well, what I would do..
1.Put a known bootable disk in the drive and see if it boots.
2.Make sure BIOS is configured to boot floppy first.
3.If you have another PC install the drive on it and see if it works there.

Edit: posted same time as mjc.

[jamisz]

have used 2 different floppy drives and both give me the same problem, also have tried numerous different startup orders in the bios, none of them seem to work...

(mainly using floppy as the first boot)

[jamisz]

I have tried all of those as well cnm...have made a normal boot disk on my other PC, it works fine on my other PC just doesnt read on the new one....

[Budfred]

Have you checked either of the drives you are using in another system to make sure they are working?

One possibility is that the floppy drive connector on the mobo is bad. Options would include RMA the board or get an external USB floppy drive if your BIOS will boot to USB.

[mjc]

Or a PCI controller card....you can still find some that have floppy connections.

[Honcho]

When you say you have tried configuring the bios over and over again, what exactly have you configured? Have you set it to look to the floppy for boot first? for eg:bootsequence : A,C,SCSI or in some cases : firstbootdevice : floppy
secondbootdevice : HDD0

Im surprised none else thought to ask.
Have you tried useing your windows cd to boot from? Windows setup will allow you to configure your harddrive in most cases.

[cnm]

2.Make sure BIOS is configured to boot floppy first. :)

Also make sure that A: is set to 1.4M, if your BIOS gives you a choice.

[Budfred]

"Im surprised none else thought to ask."

Actually both mjc and cnm mentioned the issue of setting the floppy first in the boot sequence....

[mjc]

Im surprised none else thought to ask.
Have you tried useing your windows cd to boot from? Windows setup will allow you to configure your harddrive in most cases.



I think he was thinking of booting from the CD as not being mentioned...

I had thought of it, but since this is a new build, it would be a good idea to get the floppy working first. It may be time to throw in the towel and RMA the motherboard. Especially if the clock is ticking on the returns window.

[rond36]

I had the same problem when I built the system that I am using. I solved my problem by flipping the floppy drive cable up side down with the key opposite the slot I don't know if the cable(rounded generic) or the drive(Sony) was made wrong but it works fine plugged in backwards.

[BigBlue66]

If the Western Digital harddrive is the only drive on the Primary IDE channel, and the jumper is set to Master, remove it. New WD drives are really finicky about jumper settings when they are the only drive on the channel. Remove the jumper completely and see if that helps. I know, I know, what does that have to do with the floppy? Maybe nothing and maybe everything. I have ran into the same problem before with newer WD harddrives. Worth a shot.