HELP! Very weird -- floppy goes crazy, won't boot from hard drive

[Kwad Guy]

So I purchased a few Vectra VEi7 barebones computers
very cheaply...Was going to toss some processors, hard
drives and memory in them and donate them to a local
school...

The thing is, I am having a problem with them...When
I boot things go crazy...

After the BIOS loads, it checks for a diskette in the
floppy drive and then...keeps checking, without stop...

If I install a floppy, it boots from that just fine. If
not, it just sits there checking the floppy forever.
(Not cycling, continuous).

If I disable the floppy in the BIOS, the machine just
hangs with a blank screen (there's a hard drive with
a loaded OS attached as master on IDE1; I also tried
it on IDE2).

The hard drive is recognized in the BIOS. If I load Win98
from the floppy, the hard drive is accessible.

I tried clearing the CMOS, and it didn't help. The
BIOS is updated to the latest version available at the HP
web site (it's from the middle of '99).

The motherboard uses the SIS 620 chipset. (Yeah, it's
cheap, but it's perfectly fine for the school).

I am having this problem on more than one machine, which
makes me wonder if they're all defective in the same way,
or if there's some peculiarity I'm not considering...

Thanks,

Kwad

 

[Cybordolphin]

You might check your ide cable.... make sure the "1" pin is connected to the "red" on the cable.

 

[Vinny N]

Cybordolphin:

The IDE cable is set correctly if the BIOS detects it and if it's accessible after boot from a floppy.


Kwad Guy:

Does the BIOS of the motherboard have any options for boot order?
Is it set to boot off HD0 or IDE0 after the floppy?
If it is, how about try making it boot from the HDs first.

 

[TonyT]

Also, you can try disabling "seek floppy at startup" in your BIOS. That should stop the machine from checking for a floppy disk when the machine starts.

 

[Kwad Guy]

I have tried all the following:

Disconnecting the floppy entirely
Disabling floppy A in the BIOS
Changing the boot order in the BIOS so that the hard drive is first

None of these have worked. Diconnecting/disabling the floppy drive
does make it stop doing the continual access dance, but then the
machine just sits there. Sort of like: If I can't boot off the
floppy, then I'm just not going to do anything...The screen
just sits there blank...I also tried inserting a bootable CD
in the CDrom (Win98) trying to boot off that. No dice...

Incidentally, is it possible to somehow boot off a floppy (e.g.
Win98 boot floppy) and THEN install the full-blown Windows on the
hard drive. As I mentioned, if I boot off a floppy, the hard drive
is seen...

Kwad

 

[Cybordolphin]

To my knowledge... that is the ONLY way to install Windows. I have always had to boot off of the floppy (with the windows disk in it), then do the "NEW" install of windows, once you get to the floppy.

This might be your problem. If you have no operating system for your computer to boot to... then your computer is NOT going to boot to the hard drive.

Try using the Windows floppy to boot to first. Then choose to enable cdrom install/bootup. This should allow you to get to the cdrom. Then do the windows install.

Let us know what happens.

 

[Kwad Guy]

Hi Cybordolphin:

The hard drive I was trying to boot off of already had the OS
loaded (I'd loaded it onto the drive on another VEi7--one not demonstrating this problem--then moved the drive over the
problem VEi7). So it should have seen the hard drive...There IS
an OS loaded...

Kwad

 

[borealiss]

have you tried switching ide cables with a computer that has not demonstrated the problem? when you have this problem on other machines, are you using the same hard disk, or are you using different hard drives with the os loaded onto them from a different computer? were the os' that were loaded onto the defective computers done from the same computer?

 

[Kwad Guy]

Hi:

I haven't tried swaping the IDE cables (I figured that if the
drive(s) show up properly at boot time, they must be OK, but
your suggestion is a good one--it can't hurt to try)...

The hard drive was formatted and loaded with the OS on another
identical (except it worked) computer. Then the hard drive was
physically removed from that computer and attached to the current
one...I don't think this is the problem, because the machine also
won't boot from a bootable CDrom (and this particular machine does
allow booting from a bootable CDrom)...

Kwad

 

[borealiss]

to isolate the component that might be giving you problems, i would swap out the floppy, cables, vid card, etc... in the bad computer for the ones in the good computer. this will isolate the mainboard in the bad computer. if it does not boot, there's probably a configuration problem with the motherboard. if it does, start swapping out the good components one at a time that's in the bad computer with components that were originally in the bad computer. ie, take out good vid card in bad computer case and replace with bad vid card, etc. hopefully this will allow you to isolate the trouble component and maybe exchange it or buy a new one.