Floppy Drive Not Recognized at boot

**starrekin61** · April 2nd, 2005, 06:08 PM

Hi. Just installed a new floppy drive, receiving message that it is an unrecognized floppy drive and to run setup in bios. have phoenix bios4.0, release 6.0, on a pentium II, running win98. need to have a working floppy drive so i can reinstall and format the system. no other way around it, trust me.
Any ideas, what i need to do? Anyone know any sites with bios manuals/info on them? Thanks for the help. really appreciate it.

**Ruslan** · April 3rd, 2005, 12:16 AM

Welcome to Windrivers Forums, starrekin61!

Did you check BIOS settings? - make sure Floppy controller is enabled and Drive's type is set correctly (1,44Mb).
Then check the floppy cable and make sure it is a proper (twisted) cable and properly connected. Are you sure the drive itself is O'K?
Sorry if I'm asking obvious things - you didn't provide much details, though...

Also,I've seen quite a few systems with BIOS with disabled floppy controller (no any of "Floppy" options at all) - flashing newer BIOS can "enable" these options... Check it out...

**starrekin61** · April 4th, 2005, 01:12 PM

have checked out the bios and all the cables. only one way to hook this thing up that i can tell. green light not always on, i think. it appears to be enabled in the bios, but there is no actual listing of the drive in the bios.
how do you "flash" the bios?
do you know of anywhere that i can get info or manuals on the phoenix bios? i looked on their site, but didn't really find anything helpful there either. thanks for the help.

**Ruslan** · April 4th, 2005, 07:33 PM

Originally Posted by starrekin61

how do you "flash" the bios?
do you know of anywhere that i can get info or manuals on the phoenix bios?

This site ( http://www.wimsbios.com/ ) have a lot of useful information regarding BIOSes...

You can download the manual for your motherboard - usually it also includes some explanations of the BIOS settings... What the system and MB do you have?
If you don't know, you can use some hardware info utilities like www.hwinfo.com , www.lavalys.com , www.sysinfolab.com ( http://www.topshareware.com/ASTRA-Ad...nsfer-1544.htm )

**starrekin61** · April 8th, 2005, 12:57 PM

ok, i feel like a real dumb a** here, but the green light is always on, and there is only way to plug the darn thing in. it won't fit in any other way. will look again, to see.
i have a pentium II, 450mz system with a phoenix bios vers.4
thanks for the help.
sorry it took a while to check this, my monitor decided to go get fried in the middle of this.

**Jeff316** · April 8th, 2005, 02:43 PM

I had an "always on green light" on an old floppy I stuck in my new sandbox PC, replaced it with another and all was fine - I assumed the first one was bad so you may want to see if you can borrow a known good one to try out. Since you said it was a new floppy I would hope this isn't the case for you but you never know.

Also the ribbon cable can only pretty much go on one way but check the power cable too, on some systems it is hard to get it just right - I am always messing that up.

**geoscomp** · April 8th, 2005, 03:22 PM

it isnt that hard to get a floppy cable on backwards either at the floppy end or the motherboard end, and a constant on light is a good sign of it. Not all cables have a pin block or a keyway these days.

**jeradsyn** · April 13th, 2005, 12:59 AM

Did your new drive come with a new ribbon cable? You might want to try a new/different ribbon cable.

When attaching the cable, typically, the #1/marked wire will plug in on the end opposite of the power lead. As for which socket to plug into, I remember by saying 'A is after, B is before' the twist...

I know that you said you checked the bios, but did you go both places? Page one has you set drive letter and drive type, page two allows you to 'enable floppy seek' and 'floppy swap'.

Sorry to repeat the more obvious, but sometimes it helps jog the memory!