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Thread ID: 16547	2002-03-11 08:42:00	Finicky floopy drive.	Guest (0)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
38731	2002-03-11 08:42:00	Ive just reformated reinstalled everything, and in doing so noticed that I have a rather curious problem with my floppy drive. No idea when it started because I only noticed it when trying to create a boot disk. My machine will not boot from a floppy disk. If a non-system disk is in the drive, it will give its usual error message, but if it IS a boot disk, then it simply stops. The floppy drive seeks for about a second, and then bootup stops completely, no activity what so ever. In DOS, Win98 and Win2k the drive reads and writes fine. Any ideas?	Guest (0)
38732	2002-03-11 10:41:00	No idea. Update the BIOS? In case it's a BIOS related problem. Have a snoop around in the BIOS incase settings are incorrect. I really have no idea what it could be but if you fix it I would like to know.	Guest (0)
38733	2002-03-11 11:14:00	I presume you've checked the BIOS setup for A drive as one of the boot drive options. The error report from a non-boot disc indicates that this is happening. It could be a faulty boot floppy - have you tested it in another computer that will boot from a floppy?	Guest (0)
38734	2002-03-11 18:36:00	I had that about a year ago with a ME setup. The system quite happily rebooted, it knew the disk was there and then booted up as normal. I ended up getting one of my own bootup floppies and using that and it worked fine. Being curious I tried the 'dud' bootup disk later on a different computer, same result, it detected the disk and then carried on booting up as normal. Dud disk, maybe something has not copied over when the bootup was created..........?	Guest (0)
38735	2002-03-12 03:45:00	My pick is that the BIOS is set to NOT boot from floppy. I suppose it's 'silent' because that is a good idea in security things. Keeps them confused. Works for you ;<) .	Guest (0)
38736	2002-03-12 09:07:00	Yes Floppy is set as a boot device - primary in fact. Yes the boot disk works in another machine.	Guest (0)
38737	2002-03-13 11:33:00	What a bamboozler! Is it possible that your FDD can WRITE to Track 0, Sector 1 but not READ from it? I don't think that sector is used on non-boot discs hence they could be read normally. Can you boot from a floppy made on another machine? If this isn't the answer here are some other things you could try. A trace of consistency may show somewhere. 1. Try a DOS boot disc. 2. Try boot floppies for Win 95, other versions of 98, Win 2000. 3. If you have Norton Utilities see if you can read T0 S1 of your boot floppy into Disk Doctor. If you can't, try writing some garbage into that sector on an empty floppy and see if you can read it back in NU. Keep us posted.	Guest (0)
38738	2002-03-14 03:23:00	It can read that sector --- non-system/boot disks have the message saying so in that sector. The sector is replaced when the floppy is made bootable.	Guest (0)
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