At 09:45 PM 6/6/2001 -0700, you wrote:
>Mark, I reloaded the defaults and got "drive failure (40)" message in POST,
>and it stopped there.  I had to go back in the BIOS and disable "seek floppy
>on boot" to get past POST.  I then tried Larry Fisk's suggestion to boot
>into safe mode command prompt only.  When I tried to run the A drive in DOS
>I got "seek error" message, and it would not run.  The LED lit up, but it
>would not run.  Any other suggestions?  Joel

I just jumped into this thread at the end and I want to clarify..... You
absolutely  know the floppy, cable and power connector are good and you
have tested the cable and floppy on another box right ? OK then it must be
something in the BIOS...probably a corrupt BIOS.. Did you use a motherboard
jumper to clear the BIOS before you loaded defaults ? If not and you have
such a jumper to short the BIOS...the one to clear the password is the same
thing...then put the jumper on and let it sit there 30 seconds.

If you don't have a jumper but the board has a Disk lithium battery then do
this....pull the battery out and short the lead for 15 seconds.....touch
the top springy part to the bottom of the battery holder..then put the
battery back in and start the machine....at the start of POST immediately
enter the BIOS and load defaults...save then exit ...reboot
successfully...reboot again ...enter the BIOS change your settings.

NOTE ..once you start shorting the BIOS with the battery leads you are
taking a risk....I wouldn't hesitate to try it but you might not be
comfortable with the associated risk.....i.e. you could fry the BIOS or
very remote chance you could damage the motherboard.

At this point if it were me and I absolutely knew that the floppy, power
connector, ribbon cable were good ...and I had tested everything on another
PC and put a meter on the power lead...and had re seated everything a
couple of times my next step would be to check the motherboard manufacture
for the latest BIOS version. If I wasn't running that version I would clear
the BIOS with the jumper or the battery leads as explained above ...load
defaults ...reboot ....and then flash to the latest version. Make sure you
use a UPS when you flash the BIOS....particularly if like me you are in
California! If the power goes off while you are flashing you will loose
your BIOS and will  need a EPROM burner to burn another BIOS

Again there is a bit of risk that you might loose the BIOS but for me it
would be an acceptable level of risk.

Mark Rode
The NOSPIN Group

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