Philippe,

I am confused, you mention that it is a floppy drive, but no modern
computers actually boot their OS from the floppy drive anymore, they just
aren't big enough for the OS. About the only thing they are used for these
days are to install or copy data, but again, most SW comes on CD, so
floppies are almost obsolete. PC's these days boot from the hard disk, which
is not usually accessible from outside the case. The ribbon cable you
describe also does not sound like a floppy drive cable. Older systems with
two floppy drives would have a cable with a "twist" in some of the lines
between the drive connectors, this was so it could distinguish between
floppy A and B. The cable you describe almost sounds like the EIDE hard
drive cable, and the "hole" in the cable is normal.

Unless your BIOS settings have been changed to specify not to boot from the
hard disk, then the hard disk may have died or the OS has been corrupted or
erased and Windows XP needs to be re-installed. If you indeed did replace
the floppy disk, then this won't help since the real problem is with the
hard disk. If you actually replaced the hard disk, then it will be blank,
and you need to install the OS (Windows XP) on to it.

Russ Poffenberger
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Personal Computer Hardware discussion List 
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of [log in to unmask]
> Sent: Monday, September 24, 2007 11:15 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: [PCBUILD] FLOPPY DRIVE
> 
>  My Autistic daughter was given a gateway computer running 
> WinXP PRO Everything was fine until a few days ago, the 
> computer will not boot, It will stop on a black screen with 
> white letters(Remember DOS?) The error is something like this 
> ( WRONG DISK IN PLACE INSERT THE CORRECT BOOT DISK) I checked 
> the dsrive, nothing in place, the floppy ribbon has a small 
> area that looks like it was poked thru. I checked this ribbon 
> and there are no wires that seem to be crossed/shorted or any 
> other visable wire issue so I purchased a new floppy drive, 
> installed it and got same error I even removed power and the 
> ribbon off and I still get error. My wonderful sweet special 
> needs daughter feels awful that she can't use it. all help 
> appreciated Philippe Beaulieu
> 

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