[cgarlo]

old AMD500 with win 98 2ed edition. on startup it shows memory ok. it shows the installed drives ok. then it stops with the curser in the upper left corner. i have reseated all removable chips and jumpers. the only things left in it is the vidio driver pcb. the floppy shows no sign of life. the cd does flash the light. the HD flashes it's light twice briefly. i have removed the floppy and the cd drives and switched the HD cable.
thanks
conrad

Edited by cgarlo, 12 September 2005 - 03:16 PM.

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Welcome to G2G

Is the hard drive being detected correctly in the bios?

[Samm]

Welcome to G2G

Is the hard drive being detected correctly in the bios?

[cgarlo]

bios sees the HD and the CD. i have tried to bootup on the HD, CD, floppy. nothing. it does call the HD by it's correct name and model.

Edited by cgarlo, 12 September 2005 - 04:02 PM.

[Samm]

Hmm, that doesn't sound promising.

Try the following :
1. Make sure you have a 'known good' bootable floppy disk
2. Disconnect the main power cable from the PSU to the motherboard
3. Disconnect the hard drive & CDROM cabling from the motherboard
4. Double check the floppy drive cabling is correct
5. Remove any PCI cards etc (except for video obviously)
6. Clear the bios using the clear cmos jumper (move jumper to pins 2-3 for about 30 secs, then replace back on pins 1-2)
7. Reconnect the power, insert the boot disk & try booting again.

Let me know what happens. If the system doesn't manage to boot from the floppy disk, let me know whether the floppy drive LED stays on permanently or if the drive makes any attempt to read the disk.

[cgarlo]

bios sees the HD and the CD. i have tried to bootup on the HD, CD, floppy. nothing.  it does call the HD by it's correct name and model.

i just found that the boot from floppy was disabled in the bios. changed it and now it does trun the light on and seek a track then trun light off. still sets with curser in top left corner.

Edited by cgarlo, 13 September 2005 - 11:31 AM.

[Samm]

Glad to hear you've re-enabled booting from floppy in the bios but have you tried the other steps I suggested yet?

[cgarlo]

yes i have tried all the steps. with all but the floppy disconnected and a good bootable disk in it still just flashes the curser. you can hear it try the floppy. the only way i have been able to get it to do any thing different is to disconnect all disks and then i get detecting drives = none floppy drive fail (40).
conrad

Edited by cgarlo, 13 September 2005 - 02:37 PM.

[Samm]

Floppy drive fail (40) normally means one of the following :

1. Bad drive
2. Bad cable
3. Cable incorrectly fitted
4. Incorrectly configured

Do you know for certain that the floppy drive is OK? If your not 100% sure, can you test it on another machine or use another floppy drive that you know works?

If the drive's OK, check the cable for damage or try a different cable.
Also make sure that the cable is inserted the right way round. The floppy drive controller port on the motherboard should be marked with a '1' at one end. The edge of the cable with the stripe down it must be inserted at this end.
The same applies to the drive itself - red stripe at the pin '1' end. Also make sure the last connector on the cable immediately after the twist is the one that connects to the drive, not the motherboard.

If your floppy drive doesn't have the pins numbers marked on it, then let me know.

[cgarlo]

the reason i get the floppy 40 error is because i had it disconnected. it never says to put in a system disk no matter what drive i have it to try and boot from. with HD and CD disconnected and the floppy empty it will look at the floppy (i can hear it try) then it shows the curser. it never say it can't find a system disk. the floppy and cable are good i have checked them. this pc was in use for several years. i took it out of service about 6 month ago and it was working fine at the time. it was stored in the shipping carton so there was no damage done to it.

Edited by cgarlo, 13 September 2005 - 03:51 PM.

[Samm]

What happens if you have the floppy drive connected (no hard drive or cdrom), insert the boot disk before powering on & then try to boot up?

[cgarlo]

it just clicks on the floppy drive then displays the curser

[Samm]

does the floppy drive LED come on and stay on until the system is powered off again or does it come on & go off a few seconds later?

[cgarlo]

it just comes on momentarly thern turns off.

[Samm]

can you tell me exactly what motherboard you have - the make & model should be printed on the board itself.

[cgarlo]

the MB is a DFI K6BV3+/66 rev. B2

THANKS FOR ALL YOUR HELP i found out that if i turn off the external cache in the bois it works. the motherboard has 1 MB external cache it must have went bad.
thanks again. how do i close this post?
conrad

Edited by cgarlo, 14 September 2005 - 03:34 PM.