Ongoing saga of PC Boot Problem 4

[Crustyoldbloke]

OK, new thread without the 90 odd previous postings. Now where were we?

Jay, just tried disconnect on HDD with boot up disk. POST beep was good - same result though. I've rechecked all of the jumper settings.

Die dulci fruere!
Phil
24 Beers in a case, 24 hours in a day.......coincidence??

 

[Crustyoldbloke]

Hi Jay

I'm just waiting for a friend to return home from the Edinburgh celebrations (the finale of the Queen's Jubilee Tour of UK, culminating in the Edinburgh Tattoo [I wonder where and what she's had drawn, I would not have thought her to be a tattoo person], a bloody long way to go for one of those things.

I believe he has a PC that he uses for testing purposes, and I was going to test the CPU next before continuing with my quest.

I note that my son is getting cyber withdrawal symptoms and he has sneaked onto mine a couple of times.
Regards
Phil
Si fractum non sit, noli id reficere.

 

[DBSSP]

Well, I suppose weathering out the storm is the only thing we could do. Let us know what you find out. Don't forget to test your memory as well!
There are alot of people out there that you would never think to have a tatoo and yet some of them are to the extreme of very large ones! Jay
"If the words up and down were reversed, would you trip and fall or trip and fly?"

 

[Crustyoldbloke]

Hi Everyone

I thought that I might just give you the good news that I now have the PC running (HOORAY!!!!). It was the MOBO and CPU that had blown. I managed to scrounge an AMD 2/350 and the replacement MOBO as of 10 days ago after being reassured that it was good.

So the PC runs quite well, except the floppy now has a problem. Initially the drive would try to read a disk over and over again before giving up. Now it tries to read the disk once and declares that the disk is not formatted.

I changed the floppy for an assumed good one, with exactly the same results. I checked with "device manager" and noted that I had two drivers loaded, so I chose the generic one. result still the same. I changed the cable, just in case, same. I have checked the connectors for stability and orientation, all OK.

What should be my next step? Regards
Phil
Si fractum non sit, noli id reficere.

 

[GrandpaCarl]

HI PHIL,

Glad to hear the good news that the system, in the main, is working! Sorry the floppy disk is exhibiting a problem.

You say that you have checked the cabling, and swapped out the drive. For the moment, we MIGHT be safe in assuming the hardware is not the problem.

I do hope that you have tried to read more than one actual diskette, and all respond the same way.

As far as the device manager goes, there should be an entry for the drive itself under the main heading of disk drives. Mine says simply: Generic NEC Floppy Disk, and there is no driver required.

There is another entry under Floppy Disk Controllers, and there should be an entry under this that says Standard Floppy Disk Controller with two driver entries:

C:\Windows\System\IOSubsys
C:\Windows\System\VMM32\IOS.vxd

These are drivers that come with the Win 98SE.

The Standard Floppy Disk Controller should show resources used as follows:

IO Range 03F0-03F5
IRQ 6
DMA 02

or something of the sort.

If there seems to be a problem, look for the two driverd in the Windows\System subdirectory to be sure they are there.

Often when there is a problem with a device not showing up correctly in Device Manager, it is a good idea to delete the floppy entries that are there, both drive and controller, and than power down and reboot, letting the system to completely reinstall them. While I cannot remember ever having a problem with flopy disk drives or controllers having a problem, I have used this procedure to resolve problems with modems, sound cards, and others.

You are so close to victory. Press on and let's conquer this last bit of resistance!


GrandpaCarl

 

[edfair]

OK, this one is thru, time for a new thread.
Ed Fair
unixstuff@juno.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.

 

[Crustyoldbloke]

Hi Both

I'm surprised that you have logged on today, as I have just heard on the News that it's a public holiday (Labour Day?) in the States. A big thankyou.

It would appear that the floppy disk, full of info on my PC was blank by the time it arrived at the other. My guess is that I placed it on top of a spare hard drive and erased, sorry scrambled, everything. Panic over and success.

Spurred on by this moderate success, I have decided to install a removable HDD on my PC, as a back up. Therefore, there is no doubt in my mind that you'll be hearing from me again.

Once again, to everyone I've got to know over the past couple of months, THANKS. You know, there has been one good thing to come out of all of this saga. My son hasn't had a PC to use and has been getting plenty of exercise instead, just like when I was a boy. Regards
Phil
Si fractum non sit, noli id reficere.

 

[DBSSP]

Congrats to you Phil, and to everybody involved! Yet another Tek-Tips success!

Here's to another problem solved and another 5,000,000 to go!
Jay
"If the words up and down were reversed, would you trip and fall or trip and fly?"