Diskette drive 0 failure

[amberlynn]

Hello,
I have a Dell Dimension C521 that will no longer boot.
On boot, the message "Diskette drive 0 failure" then "Keyboard failure" then "Invalid Configuration information please run setup".
F1 to continue F2 for setup.
pressing F1 or F2 at this point does nothing.
Before the error message, when first booting, F2 for setup and F12 for boot devices message is on the screen - but neither buttons do anything.
There is no floppy drive in this PC.
Any ideas?
I've googled, but all solutions involve getting in to the BIOS, which I'm unable to do.
Thanks!
Amber

 

[vacunita]

Keyboard Failure" on its one would suggest something is wrong with the keyboard.

However together with the other errors it points to some type of electronic failure of the motherboard.

Its unlikely that 2 different inputs would fail at the same time.

for starters if you have another keyboard I'd try that. See if you can get into BIOS.

The Second option would be to clear the BIOS by removing the battery, you'll have to open the case and look for a small button cell battery and pull it out. Unplug the machine so it has no power and let it sit for 5 minutes.
Put the little battery back in and re-connect the PC and turn it on.

If you can get into setup with any of the previous 2 methods hen you can see if anything needs to be reconfigures.

By the way did you have a power outage, blackout, brownout etc... recently that may have contributed to this?


----------------------------------
Phil AKA Vacunita
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Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[edfair]

You might as well get a replacement battery. You put the bad one back in you'll get issues again shortly.

This series of faults is pretty much a symptom of a battery that is going bad, although other things can cause them.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[goombawaho]

Try connecting only the monitor and keyboard (nothing else) to get into the BIOS. And try to use a PS2 keyboard if the motherboard supports it.

I see the Floppy error a lot when the BIOS has been reset and it thinks there is a floppy attached but there is not. Hence the error - floppy failure.

 

[BadBigBen]

Like goombawaho suggested, use a PS/2 keyboard this should get you into the BIOS Setup...

Floppy Seek is enabled and tries to identify the floppy, which is not attached and spews out the Floppy Error...

it then notices that no PS/2 keyboard is attached, as the USB legacy mode (for keyboards) is probably not enabled, and spews out the KBD error...

the last error, is the notification that the CMOS got reset or is corrupt, and that you need to enter the BIOS setup to save them out...

CMOS resets usually occur when the battery is drained, was removed, or the jumper was set to CLR CMOS... so it would be prudent to just replace the battery as EdFair suggested...

Here you can read more about it:

System Boot Sequence

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/mbsys/bios/bootSequence-c.html

Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"