Can't Boot Off Floppy Disk

[Carbo]

Dell Dimension 4600, XP Pro. Two hard disks, two optical drives. I also have an external floppy. I want to boot off of it, but try as I might I haven't been able to. Frustrating, as this should be a no brainer.
The drive works. The floppy disc is fine. And I have tried every possible combination of settings in the BIOS. Still, when I restart the rig it runs right through the floppy drive and into the C drive and the OS. Any suggestions? Thanks.

 

[airfoil]

How does the ext. drive connect to the rig? USB/EPP? Is the drive from a laptop?

 

[firerock]

Did you format you floppy correctly to boot up your pc? Also, try update your bios.

 

[theMan]

not many bioses allow booting from an external device connected by usb. i would get an adapter (dont know if this exitsts) or just get a normal floppy drive, which would cost the same as the adapter.

 

[Carbo]

How does the ext. drive connect to the rig? USB/EPP? Is the drive from a laptop?

USB.

Did you format you floppy correctly to boot up your pc? Also, try update your bios.

As far as I know, the floppy disk has been formatted. What do you mean by "correctly"? And, yes, the BIOS is the latest version.

not many bioses allow booting from an external device connected by usb. i would get an adapter (dont know if this exitsts) or just get a normal floppy drive, which would cost the same as the adapter.

I wasn't aware that an external floppy drive could be so damn tempermental. I may just spring for an internal model and learn from the experience.

 

[firerock]

What I meant is that did you format your floppy as a bootdisk correctly? Did you set/put all the necessary files on the floppy. Also, older Dell mobo doesn't support external usb as a boot drive.

 

[Carbo]

firerock, yes, I formatted the floppy correctly. And as for the Dell mobo, you might be right. But this PC isn't quite one year old yet. No matter, though. I dropped $10 and sprung for an internal drive. Problem solved. Thanks.