On 16 May 98 at 9:31, ferdy wrote:

> What is happening is that when I boot the FD light stays on all
> the time and I get a FD failure message (40) If I f1 then I get
> insert system disk. My questions are:
>
> What could be the cause of this error message,

  This usually means that the ribbon cable to the floppy drive is
inserted wrong way around (or otherwise incorrectly).  I've done this
four times in my life, and each time has *killed* the drive; some
other people claim to have been able to use the drive afterwards.  [5
times if you include the time that didn't kill the drive, but that
time I had missed one of the pins and so it bent aside instead of
going into the cable connector.]

> I am planning on using System Commander, can I install that before
> I install DOS or WIN95, or anything else? The manual isn't very
> clear on this, it seems to imply that one needs to have an OS
> already installed.

  In order to be bootable, I believe the System Commander partition
will need to be in the first 1024 cylinders.  Putting it first on the
disk is a pretty sensible approach.  [I use the utility that comes
with Partition Magic, and that works for me.]

> How do I have a boot disk if there is no OS installed, and how do I install
> DOS6.22 if it won't recognize the FD?

  Gotta fix that FD.

David G