[EzTechGuy]

Hello guys....

PC booting but its not recognizing floppy drive, the floppy drive is good because I took it and the floppy ribbon out of a working pc. So I know the floppy drive is good and works fine.

I went into BIOS booting selection and made sure BIOS was set to boot up and find IDE 1st. then CD Rom 2nd. and Floppy A: 3rd in boot sequence and saved it. I even rebooted pc and then went back into BIOS settings to see if it had in deed saved settings to make sure floppy drive was looked for by the pc to boot up from a boot disk. "I know the boot disk is fine cause I tried it in a working pc" "I also know the floppy drive is good, because I took it out of a working pc as well" doing this to eliminate what could be problems with the pc not booting up with floppy drive with boot disk. I also put in my bootable CD of WinME Corp. edition in CD Rom drive and tried to boot up with it. (NOTE THIS: I had used a working pc to wipe, fdisk and then format with Fat32 for the IDE 6.4 Gig Hard drive, which currently does not have an OS on it but ready to go). I also made sure the floppy ribbon to the MB is plugged in correctly as well.

When the pc booting up, with a WinME boot disk and also a bootable Windows ME Crop. adition CD in CD Rom drive it still don't bother looking at the floppy drive and it goes on to look for the CD Rom drive and it finds it and starts what it looks like to read the CD but still doesn't. It then goes and trys to look at floppy drive A: again and over and over.

I noticed the floppy drive green led light stays on constantly soon as you push the power button on.... that I know isn't just zackly right.

I said hummm... I know I got the floppy ribbon on correctly but any how, I powered it off again and then unplugged the floppy drive MB grey ribbon and plugged it up oposite and tried booting up the pc. The green light wasn't on when you first booted up the pc but while it went on to boot up, a ERROR message came up on black screen saying that so I know I had it before plugged in correctly.

This same buddy im helpn him with his emachine tonight dropped by and has a older pc, its like a Pentium 133 Mhz. or 166 Mhz. or so pc.

The older pc is a built no name pc.

It has a gold looking motherboard, can't find on the motherboard what brand it is even. The BIOS is American Megatrends 24Hr. burn in chip on it.

When it boots up and shows black screen showing loading and checking memory and so on and show like things are ok but mmm all the above troubles.

PLEASE help?

Is it a bad motherboard?

OR what?

Thanks for any help!

Please help and reply?

EzTechGuy

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If the floppy data cable is backwards, the green light comes on as soon as you power up the machine.

If you look at the cable, there is a red line running the length of the cable.

Is it closer to the floppy's power connector, or further away.

With most (if not all) floppy's, the red line on the cable must be closest to the power cable. This is the only way to know if it's correctly installed prior to powering up as it's very easy to install the cable backwards.

makai

[makai]

If the floppy data cable is backwards, the green light comes on as soon as you power up the machine.

If you look at the cable, there is a red line running the length of the cable.

Is it closer to the floppy's power connector, or further away.

With most (if not all) floppy's, the red line on the cable must be closest to the power cable. This is the only way to know if it's correctly installed prior to powering up as it's very easy to install the cable backwards.

makai

[EzTechGuy]

makai

Yes your correct, on most drives your MB data grey ribbon red line is to be nearest to the power supply cable plug.

It is plugged in correctly.

Like I said in my post:
I said hummm... I know I got the floppy ribbon on correctly but any how, I powered it off again and then unplugged the floppy drive MB grey ribbon and plugged it up oposite and tried booting up the pc. The green light wasn't on when you first booted up the pc but while it went on to boot up, a ERROR message came up on black screen saying that so I know I had it before plugged in correctly.

Even though I knew it was plugged correctly, I went ahead and plugged it in opposite and tried it anyway see. Then I got the errors.

But... when I plug the floppy drive in correctly it don't show up errors in black screen while its booting and going through its booting check black screens.

When I do have the floppy disk drive plugged up and its not showing errors, the green led light stays on continuesly and thats not right.

Please, more of ya help.... thanks?

Reply please?

EzTechGuy

[makai]

EzTechGuy,

Sorry, but if the floppy light comes on and stays on as soon as you power up, this normally means the cable is on backwards. This is how it's been for over 18 years I've been working on computers.

Do you have another floppy drive you can try?

makai

[EzTechGuy]

Yes your correct, I thought my thinking was correct.

If the Floppy drive light stays on, it means the data cable is plugged wrongly but when I reversed it, it came up ERRORS on black screen with it was booting up see.

Odd....

i know the floppy drive and cable is good because I took it off my Server PC ... and before I took it off, I put in my WinME boot disk and booted up the Server PC up with it to make 100% sure both drive and floppy disk was good.

Can you all reply more please?

Thanks

EzTechGuy

Edited by EzTechGuy, 14 July 2005 - 02:09 PM.

[Samm]

I realise you have tried the floppy cable both ways round at the drive connection but have you tried reversing it at the motherboard socket?

[EzTechGuy]

Yes your correct, I thought my thinking was correct.

If the Floppy drive light stays on, it means the data cable is plugged wrongly but when I reversed it, it came up ERRORS on black screen with it was booting up see.

Odd....

i know the floppy drive and cable is good because I took it off my Server PC ... and before I took it off, I put in my WinME boot disk and booted up the Server PC up with it to make 100% sure both drive and floppy disk was good.

Can you all reply more please?

Thanks

EzTechGuy

Yes I have also reversed the data ribbon plugged in on the motherboard end and as well as swapped it around both ways at the floppy drive ribbon and still problems.

I plug it in one way and the floppy drive light stays on from sec one when you power on the pc and reverse data ribbon cable either at motherboard end and tried reverseing plugging data ribbon cable end at floppy drive end. When I got the data ribbon plugged in and the green led light is out from sec one of powering up the pc when its booting up and shows you the testing of the memory and the pc in the black screens up comes the error message saying A: Drive ERROR.

(Yes keeping in mind, in bios settings I do have floppy drive A: and CD Rom drive enabled and included in boot up sequence)

Get this.....below:

I have a manufacturer cd of XP Home and boot up pc with it in CD Rom drive it starts off good and wants to install XP Home but the pc is a old one, its like a P-133 Mhz. or P-166 Mhz. or so and don't have min. required memory of at least 64 meg of ram. I have a home burnt copy of bootable WinME Corp edition CD and try booting up pc with it and it will not read the cd. I took the same WinME bootable CD and put it in my working pc's, either my small HP 400 Mhz. pc or my Dell 2300 and both pc's read my burnt copy of bootable WinME CD fine but not this older pc. I have also a manufacturer burnt bootable CD of Windows XP Home and it boots up and wants to install on that older pc as well but doesn't want to boot up and load or read the home burnt copy of bootable WinME CD.

Dog gone... ODD ODD junk don't ya think?

Later today, my buddy is bringing by a manufacturer burnt bootable cd of Win98 by for me to see if it will boot up with it and try to install Win98 of it.

Mmm Talk about ODD !!!

Please you all, post your input please?

Reply back?

EzTechGuy

[janteck30]

Did you guys ever found the solution to this problem... because i am having the same problem.... u cant boot from my floppy, the green light stays on consistenly after powering up... i tried swicthing around the FDD Cable, and while the light does not stay on.. it still not booting from the drive...

[Samm]

Hi janteck30, welcom to G2G

I can help you with your problem but before I do, can you please start a new thread and repeat the information you've just given us in the new thread.
It gets rather confusing when we try to help more that one person in a single thread!

Samm