Flopy disk problems after installing hard drive and CD-RW

[panacuba]

I recently installed a CD-RW Drive on my "ancient" ALR Optima 150 mhz desktop. Everything was working fine except that the floppy drive stopped working. Upon startup i kept getting a Type mismatch and Equipment configuration error. I literally tried everything I could think of from uninstalling the floppy controllers and letting windows detect them to purchasing a new cable. Finally I settled on uninstalling the floppy drive in my BIOS settings. Then I had the bright idea of installing a new 18 GB hard drive. That would be fine except that my computer is from 1996 and therefore my BIOS wont reckognize a hard drive larger than 8.4 GB's . To fix thee problem I either need a BIOS upgrade or a a floppy drive to install Western Digital's proprietary software. HELP. I am stumped. Oh yeah, my device manager says that "Drive A: is using MS-DOS compatibility mode file system". I have spent the last two weeks trying to fix this stupid floppy and have been to every support site online Google could find. Guys, there are hundreds of people reporting this same problem but nobody has come up with a verifiable solution. I just want to finish this so I can install Linux on a partition of my new hard drive and so my wife wont divorce me for having spent THREE FREAKING WEEKS ON THIS!!!!


Dying slowly in support hell

Jorge Brooks

 

[edfair]

So, have you replaced the floppy that doesn't work anymore?
Do you have seek on boot activated?
Does it seek on boot? Lite come on during POST?
Is it an integrated controller? These things die. too.
Divorce is easier if all you have to split is old, obsolete computers. Ed Fair
efair@atlnet.com

Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply.

Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.