boot disc problems

frankles · Apr-26-2004

Hi

i have had so many problems with my pc that i thought I would take it back to factory setting. It was then I discovered that my pc will not boot from the floppy. Once it is running it will read and access floppies but wont boot from there. Have checked CMOS as far as I can HELP!!

Alan · Apr-26-2004

OK, Restart your PC and press F1 at the blue screen.
This will take you to the bios setup. Scroll along to the Boot tab and press enter.
Now you should see a box with your Boot options in it.
Go to 1st Boot Device and press enter to list the options.
Select the Floppy drive as the first Boot priority. Check the others so that it reads 2nd priority CD Rom and 3rd priority hard drive.
Press f10 to save and exit.
Now you should be able to boot from your floppy drive.

Alan

Alan · Apr-26-2004

PS lets us know if it works for you.

Thanks
Alan

frankles · Apr-30-2004

Tried what you said. Nothing happened. The only blue screen I get is just before my desktop appears and pressing F1 does nothing. If I hie DEL on startup it takes me to setup. Is this where you mean? Under advance CMOS setup I have tried what you said several times.

I think that I have explained the wrong problem. What happens when I try to boot from floppy is that the pc freezes. I get the message

Trying to locate boot from floppy........ok

and then nothing. The pc just hangs. I wonder if there is something wrong in Config.Sys My pc is a few years old.

Alan · May-02-2004

Ok, Can you boot from 'C drive'? if so then boot up and look at the 'A' drive once the machine is running, is the little green light always lit and then the machine hangs or does the machine hang up when you switch it on (without a disc in the drive)? either way check the A drive light, if it is always on then you need to change the A drive as it is most likely faulty.
If, it is hanging when you turn on the machine with no disc in the drive just follow the previous instructions but make your CD drive the first choice, C drive the second, and A drive the last choice. This should get the machine to up from the C drive but if the A drive is faulty, either dis-connect it or replace it before it does further damage.

Alan

dreamnid · May-03-2004

If you have a newer Dell computer, there is another key to activate a boot menu in which you can choose whatever devicet that you want to boot from.

frankles · May-08-2004

Hi

Thanks for everyones input.

I have tried what you all say and no difference. Changed floppy drive and cable but still same problem. I feel that there is a problem in the boot process but don't know where to find any details or change it. I need to be able to boot from the floppy to enter setup from the company I bought it from. Could I just reinstall windows 98 without booting from the floppy. Help much appreciated

Alan · May-08-2004

In order for us to help you we need to know if your pc can read your floppy drive? By that I mean does your operating system function OK from the 'C' drive? When your system is running can you read floppy discs i.e. if you want to save data to floppy, does read/write then? Which program is it that requires you to boot from the floppy?
Assuming your system is working except for booting from your floppy, try making a boot disc then booting from that.

Alan

frankles · May-08-2004

Hi Alan

My pc was bought from Time computers. They give a recovery disk which has a programme called Ghost. This combined with a cd can take the pc back to factory setting. I need to uses the floppy to get the menu to start this reboot.

I do not like a lot of the things that came on the HD from Time and also thought of reformatting hd and reinstalling windows. I thought this would give me a fresh hd which I could add only the programs I wanted to. But floppy will not boot from Win98 floppy disk. To reinstall /reformat do I need to boot from floppy or can I do this once pc is running?

When pc is working I can read/write to floppy disks

Alan · May-08-2004

If you have a Win 98 boot disc and a win 98 CD you do not need to use the ghost disc. If you dont have a boot disc you can download one from http://www.bootdisk.com You can format your HD, boot with the Win 98 floppy (this will load the CD drivers) then re-install Win 98 from the CD.

Alan

frankles · May-08-2004

Thanks Alan.

I will try this