A: drive error

[Pete Burke]

OK. I repleced the battery on the Mother borad. I set the BIOS A. C.
for boot. At first I disabled Floppy B: and the light on the
floppy A: would not come on and I didn't hear it sound. When I enabled
floppy B: the light on the floppy disk came on. Either way I get A: drive error press F1 to RESUME. Then I get; "none system disk" I have tried changing floppy drives and still get this message. I have turnd the pc off
and put in a MSDOS 6.0 disk and still get this same message.I replaced the port and still get the same "NOTHING" It is a;
American Megatrends AMIBIOS 1994
Please help

[Reid]

Do you have the A: floppy connected to the end of the data cable so that there is a twist in the cable between the drive and the motherboard? That is where it should be.

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reido@my-deja.com

Friends don't let friends install Windows ME

[Pete Burke]

Originally posted by Reid:
Do you have the A: floppy connected to the end of the data cable so that there is a twist in the cable between the drive and the motherboard? That is where it should be.

Yes I did that.
The A: floppy drive will not work at all unless I keep the B: floppy enabled

[Randy_tx]

Your "A" drive is misnamed in the bios as a 5 1/4" and the "B" is misnamed as a 1.44" floppy ......something like that is going on in the bios settings.

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Will XP save Me ?

[Pete Burke]

Originally posted by Randy_tx:
Your "A" drive is misnamed in the bios as a 5 1/4" and the "B" is misnamed as a 1.44" floppy ......something like that is going on in the bios settings.



Wrong. I set each one 1.44mb and when I disable B: the A: drive will not work.

[AwARe]

Throw your Mother Board in the trash? hehe.....yeah I know all you need is another smart ass right? hmmmmmm haha, well heres what ya do......First thing people forget is, finding and fixing a problem usually has to include some kind of deductive reasoning, and not so much guessing, so here goes........1st, unplug everything from the MotherBoard, except the floopy drive........(If you have a new floppy ribbon....Use It!, and install the floppy drive at the end of the ribbon) 2nd, go in your bios, and reset it back to defaults..(This should enable your floopy A:\ set it to a 1.44 and disable floppy drive B:\ as default, or at least I think it does) If not, then after you reset the bios, set it yourself.... 3rd, turn on the comp and watch the floppy drive light, (No floppy disk installed) one of 3 things will happen......1, no light - 2, light stays on - 3, light comes on briefly then goes out, (This is what you're looking for #3)
If #3 is what happens, then reboot with a disk and see what happens......if the light does as described in #3, and you still get the error, then try a different disk, if you try several disks, (boot disks), and you continue to get the error, and the light "does" as described in #3, then either your floppy drive, the ribbon, or the FDD controller on the MotherBoard, is defective.............If the light does "not" act as described in #3, try the following.... 1st, make sure its hooked up properly, (Obviously)- 2nd, There are 4 posible combinations of how to install the ribbon, (Sometimes only 2 if the Ribbon has a guide that fits into the MotherBoard, making it only fit one way) Make sure you try each way at least one time until the light does as described in #3 above, if after doing that you still dont get the proper results........1st try replacing or substituting the ribbon and then the floppy drive.....if none of this resolves the problem most likely your motherboard is the problem.......since the floppy B:\ seems to work..........if all else fails, try setting the floppy A:\ to something other then 1.44 turn off FDD detection on startup in the bios, and install the floppy drive as drive B:\ (this may get you up, running, and out of trouble)
For the most part depending on what the light does this is "usually" but not always what the cause of the problem is...........1 light always on - drive is hooked up wrong.........2 light does "not" come on at all - bad Ribbon or bad MotherBoard.......3 light works normally - bad boot disk or bad floppy drive
Hopefully this Helped.......................
Good Luck! http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

[TSMatt]

Is your floppy connected to your floppy controller or is it IDE? If it is IDE you will have to disable your floppy controller in BIOS.

[Pete Burke]

Originally posted by TSMatt:
Is your floppy connected to your floppy controller or is it IDE? If it is IDE you will have to disable your floppy controller in BIOS.

How do I do this? Do I go into "Advanced" setup?
What will it say?

[Randy_tx]

I will be shocked if you have an IDE floppy drive!! You stated that the bios "sees" the floppy drive as Drive "B" but it doesnt work.....that usually means you need to change the bios setting in "Advanced" which says "Swap Floppy Drive"...the setting it is on now is probably "Enabled"...it needs to be "Disabled" for your 1.44 to work. Additionally, the floppy needs to be "plugged into" the connector just AFTER the "twist" occurs in the floppy cable for it to work correctly. Good luck

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Will XP save Me ?

[AwARe]

"2nd, go in your bios, and reset it back to defaults.."

[sea69]

Originally posted by AwARe:
"2nd, go in your bios, and reset it back to defaults.."

this was the 1st thing that occured to me as well.

http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/wink.gif



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sea1_69@hotmail.com

homepage (http://www.seanweb1.homestead.com/3.html)

[Pete Burke]

Originally posted by Randy_tx:
I will be shocked if you have an IDE floppy drive!! You stated that the bios "sees" the floppy drive as Drive "B" but it doesnt work.....that usually means you need to change the bios setting in "Advanced" which says "Swap Floppy Drive"...the setting it is on now is probably "Enabled"...it needs to be "Disabled" for your 1.44 to work. Additionally, the floppy needs to be "plugged into" the connector just AFTER the "twist" occurs in the floppy cable for it to work correctly. Good luck

The only thing I see is;
"System Boot Up Num Lock" http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/redface.gifn
"Floppy drive seek at boot" :Enabled
"System Boot Up Sequence" :A: C:
"System Boot Up CPU Speed" :High
This is all I have to work with.
What Now?

[AwARe]

Pete this is your entire bios? I dont understand.....

On the first screen in your bios there "should be" posibly not but, "should be" an option to "load setup defaults"...

Is this not the case?

Are you saying you only have 1 screen for your entire bios?
And it only has 4 or 5 options?

No cmos, chipset, etc etc etc?

Posibly your BIOS has been damaged in some way?

Was this computer werking properly before you changed the battery?

[TSMatt]

He didn't change any part of the cable, so no need to focus on where the twist is in the cable. (Assuming it was working fine before) Is it just a plain old 1.44 or is it some sort of Super Disk? (Capable of 120 meg storage). Super Disks are IDE. (or the ones I have seen anyway) That being the case, you will have to go into BIOS, advanced settings, and something in the nature of "Floppy Options" should be there. Disable floppy controller, and all other options for the floppy controller. If set to "default" most MoBo's will enable the floppy controller.

If you're not sure what your floppy is connected to, pop open the ol' case and take a peek. Follow the ribbon off the floppy to the MoBo. Can you read the writing on the MoBo?(may be too cluttered to easily see). Another way: unplug the connector to the floppy, how many pins does it have? 20 someting(real technical eh?) is from the floppy controller, 40 or so is IDE.


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If at first you don't succeed, try not to screw it up again.