cdrom/floppy will not boot

[dlin]

I just finish building a new comp and it cant boot from the floppy/cd drive. The floppy drive light always stays on, it turns on right after I press the power button but it wont boot floppys. The floppy drive was from my old vaio and when i tried to fit it to my motherboard the cable does not fit. the old cable had 1 blocked pin slot by default, and could not fit into the floppy connector so i swapped it for the ribbon cable that came with the motherboard. My comp specs are

aspire xdreamer II
350w generic ps
abit is7
old (generic?) floppy drive
pioneer dvd-rom
sony cd-rw

Why does the floppy drive light stay on and why can't i boot from floppy drive

i need some help cause this is my first computer ive ever built.

 

[MrChad]

The floppy cable is probable connected upside down to either the drive or the motherboard. Turn off the computer and try different combinations until you get it working.

 

[dlin]

the cable with the twist end goes to the floppy drive right? I tried that already im gonna try the cd cables now

 

[dlin]

Ok i check and it looks right but cd/floppy still does not boot from cd/disk. I just checked the bios and it can see both my cdrom drives and the floppy. Any more suggestions?

 

[Navid]

If you insert a floppy into the floppy drive, can you write to or read from it in windows?

 

[dlin]

Nope. I am using an old maxtor hd and I have win me/xp installed from my old computer. I tried to load both os but I got errors cause hardware conflict. Thats why i need to boot from the floppy so I can format the hd. But the floppy/cdrom wont even let to load the disks

 

[MrChad]

The CD-ROM cable and the floppy cable are two different things.

Usually the floppy cable is plugged into the drive so that the red stripe is closed to the power connector. On the motherboard, look at where the floppy connection is and see if you can see which end has a "PIN 1" designation near it. The red stripe should align with that side of the plug.

This site may offer some help.

 

[MrChad]

Originally posted by: dlin
Nope. I am using an old maxtor hd and I have win me/xp installed from my old computer. I tried to load both os but I got errors cause hardware conflict. Thats why i need to boot from the floppy so I can format the hd. But the floppy/cdrom wont even let to load the disks

Why do you want XP and ME? I would recommend just sticking with XP.

If you are installing XP, you don't need to boot from a floppy to format.

1. Have SP2 ready on a CD, or slipstream it with your XP CD for convenience. If you choose not to slipstream SP2, disconnect any network cable from you computer and do not reconnect until you have SP2 installed.
2. Change the boot order in your BIOS setup so that your CD-ROM drive is listed before your hard drive.
3. Insert the XP SP2 CD in the drive and reboot.
4. In XP setup, delete any existing partitions you have and recreate a new NTFS partition.
5. XP setup will format the new partition and continue.

Let us know if you have any trouble.

 

[dlin]

Bingo!! thanks mrchad, the floppy cable was "twisted" so that the red strip was on the other side of the connector. the site was very helpful. I'll see if the install goes good.

edit*What i dont get when i reversed the dloppy cable the cdrom wouldnt boot but not that i switched it around the cdrom did boot. But the cdrom cable is separate and not part of the floppy disk. i dont know why it works now, but im sure glad it does.

i had me/xp cause i had alot of apps on ME os and didnt want to convert and risk lost data so i kept it
but now im gonna do a clean install.