Need some help on BE6-II

[mckeller]

Here is a new one. Putting together a system and I have come accross a problem. Here are the specs:
BE6-2
PIII 733
128mb of micron
Maxtor 20.5 ATA100 7200rpm
The problem is when the floppy tries to read the startup disk the floppy stops reading and the light on the floppy stays on. Sometimes this happens right away and sometimes it starts as soon as it gives me a percentage for formating. I have been able to format the harddrive but as soon as it is complete the floppy locks up and stops when it says calculating diskspace. I have tried two different floppies and two different floppy ide cables and it floppy locks anywhere between, when the floppy first strats to read and when I try to format the harddrive.

 

[bub]

I recently had problems setting up the same MB. I also had a floppy problem. I believe I had a bad drive which trashed my boot disk.

You don't say what operating system you are using. However, if you have access to another computer, you might initiate an install to see if your boot disk is OK.

For me, the 2 hard drive controllers on the board are a nightmare. I had an older Maxtor HD I wanted to use for data and a new ata100 IBM for the OS and programs. I could not get the IBM to boot on the ata100 socket as long as the Maxtor was on the other controller. I finally got upset and put them both on a Promise controller with good results.

If you get the OS installed, good luck with the peripherals. Note on page 3-41 of the manual that:

Slot 1 shares an IRQ with the AGP slot.
Slot 2 shares an IRQ with slot 5
Slots 3 and 5 share with the HPT366 ide controller.

Let's see. That means that Slot 4 & the ISA Slot are the ONLY non-sharing Slots. DON'T COUNT ON IT! Get ready for another nightmare!

My suggestion would be to install the OS with just a hard drive,CD rom drive, video card, mouse, & keyboard. Then add peripherals one at a time.

Oh. And install your OS with hard drive connected to standard controller; not the ata100. Once installed, you can switch it (maybe)!! har har

In the MB bios 'Standard CMOS Features', set the hd to 'auto'; the CD rom to 'none'. But be sure to 'Enable' both ide controllers in the bios 'Integrated Peripherals'.

Good Luck!