This problem has me totally puzzled. I think my motherboard may be faulty, but don't know for sure. I use Ghost 2003 to create periodic backups (images) of my C: partition. Been using it for years, it works great. I recently put my new system together. Everything seems to be working fine, with the obvious exception of the problem I am about to describe. When I put my Ghost 2003 boot floppy in the A: drive and boot the system, the disks sounds like it's being read, but never gets past the "Starting Windows 98" message. It just keeps chugging endlessly (I let it work at it for about 15 minutes). So I created a new boot disk and tried to boot from that. I get the message "Type the name of the command interpreter" and then it sits at a prompt A> (NOT A:\). No matter what I type, I just get the same command interpreter message. I figured the disk maybe went bad. I tried another boot disk. Same message. I tried both disks on another PC. They both worked fine. I downloaded several boot disks from the net, same problem! I tried MANY different physical disks. I tried creating a boot disk from the PC in question, STILL the same problem. I replaced the floppy drive with another known working drive. Same problem. I replaced the floppy drive cable. Still same problem. I cannot boot from the floppy, period. Windows itself sees the floppy drive fine, and I can read and write to disks in it without a problem. So I decided to create a boot CD rom in Nero. I used the Ghost 2000 floppy mentioned at the start of this message to create the CD rom, and it worked fine! I am able to boot from CD with no problem using the very floppy that won't boot from the A: drive... Obviously, I can just use the CD rom to boot from, but I want to know why I can't boot from a floppy. I'm still within my 30 day warranty on the parts (but it's close) so I want to find out if something is wrong with my motherboard.
Just for clarification, here are the facts:
Floppy Drive is connected properly and can be read and written to in Windows XP without a problem.
I have replaced the floppy drive AND cable
I have created several boot disks using different diskettes. They work in other systems, not this one.
No viruses - clean system, but scanned anyway.
Can boot from CD Rom boot disk created using actual boot disk that won't boot from the floppy drive(?!)
Boot order in BIOS has Floppy first.
Message received when booting from floppy is "Type the name of the command interpreter" A>
Booting from Ghost 2003 disk tries to load endlessly, but does not give the above message - all other disks do.
Command.com is on ALL boot disks as it should be. Never reports that it's damaged or missing.
Windows XP is working fine. Only booting from floppy is a problem.
Googling the problem gives endless messages about people having this issue trying to boot to their hard drive. This is not my problem. Any help on this would be great! I have posted this in the motherboard forum, because that is where I'm thinking the fault lies, but obviously I don't know for sure. Also, it could be helpful to know that I was originally using BIOS 1007 but updated to 1009 (via the ASUS Windows BIOS update program, because I couldn't boot from floppy). I wanted to try and flash the 1007 BIOS back on, but the update program says that because I am trying to put an old BIOS on I would need to do it via the DOS program. I will try creating a boot CD rom with the BIOS update on it and try that, but I really don't like the idea of screwing around with an emulated floppy when trying to do something as serious as flash a bios. All the system specs are listed in my signature. Any help is greatly appreciated.
Just for clarification, here are the facts:
Floppy Drive is connected properly and can be read and written to in Windows XP without a problem.
I have replaced the floppy drive AND cable
I have created several boot disks using different diskettes. They work in other systems, not this one.
No viruses - clean system, but scanned anyway.
Can boot from CD Rom boot disk created using actual boot disk that won't boot from the floppy drive(?!)
Boot order in BIOS has Floppy first.
Message received when booting from floppy is "Type the name of the command interpreter" A>
Booting from Ghost 2003 disk tries to load endlessly, but does not give the above message - all other disks do.
Command.com is on ALL boot disks as it should be. Never reports that it's damaged or missing.
Windows XP is working fine. Only booting from floppy is a problem.
Googling the problem gives endless messages about people having this issue trying to boot to their hard drive. This is not my problem. Any help on this would be great! I have posted this in the motherboard forum, because that is where I'm thinking the fault lies, but obviously I don't know for sure. Also, it could be helpful to know that I was originally using BIOS 1007 but updated to 1009 (via the ASUS Windows BIOS update program, because I couldn't boot from floppy). I wanted to try and flash the 1007 BIOS back on, but the update program says that because I am trying to put an old BIOS on I would need to do it via the DOS program. I will try creating a boot CD rom with the BIOS update on it and try that, but I really don't like the idea of screwing around with an emulated floppy when trying to do something as serious as flash a bios. All the system specs are listed in my signature. Any help is greatly appreciated.
