Need help with a curly one?

Discussion relating to Socket 7 hardware.
User avatar
Revhead
K6'er
Posts: 76
Joined: Sun Aug 19, 2001 6:18 pm
Location: Sydnoir Oztralia

Need help with a curly one?

Post by Revhead »

It seems the floppy disk controller on my motherboard has bit the dust.
Floppy disk consistently fails on boot, even though XP says the thing is working (you've got to wonder about that).
Anyway, I need to install drivers for an ATA 100 card that I have which must be installed from floppy during the Windows install process. The F6 option.
Manufacturer (it's an ST Lab IDE-CMD0649) reckons if you don't install it then Windows will overide and install its own driver, which I assume will not work.
It was working properly under W2K but silly me went and installed XP.
It's not the floppy drive itself because I have replaced that, and the cable is not reversed because I have tried that too.
Just won't read any discs.
I wondering whether there is any way around the problem.
In this day and age you have to wonder why we still have to resort to the floppy?
Maybe I can install the thing from Windows and perhaps edit the registry?
Any thoughts?
Thanks
Thanks, Revhead
XP-M Barton 2500+@2530(11.5x220), Albatron KX18D Pro II, Antec 480W, TT Silent Boost 90mm, 2x256 DC Kingmax PC3500, RAID 2x80G SATA, GF2MX400, NEC 3500, LiteOn 832s, Liteon 166s, XP Pro SP1a
K6-III+450@600(6x100) 2.1v, FOP32, SP-A586B, 512M PC133, 20G 100/7200, Kyro II, Vibra128, XP Pro SP1a (retired)
K6-III+450@550(5.5x100) 2.1v Compaq Presario 1685 notebook
Guest

Post by Guest »

You could burn all the files you would usually put on a boot disk onto a CDROM. If you can't get the files off your floppy because it won't read, you can go to some site like bootdisk.com and get the files you need. Just take those files from (a boot disk/Bootdisk.com) and your needed ATA100 driver files and burn them to CDROM. And whalla, you have a Boot CDROM w/ Drivers. You'd just have to change the settings in your BIOS to boot from the CDROM on startup.

And so now your floppy is truly useless. Your CDROM can do anything a floppy can. :D
User avatar
punkrawker82
Senior K6'er
Posts: 113
Joined: Tue Jul 29, 2003 9:06 pm

Post by punkrawker82 »

bah, sorry, thought I was already signed in with the above post....

anyway, try the boot CDROM thing out....Its should work because I've had to resort to it before under a similar instance. But if the above way doesn't work for you, there is a link at bootdisk.com describing how to make bootable CDROMS with nero and other such programs...

Good Luck :D
Past System
----------
Asus P5A-B rev1.05(Beta BIOS 1011.005)
AMD K6-2/CXT AFX @ 500Mhz(CPUCool 5 x 100)
128Mb PC100 SDRAM
VisionTek GeForce 4 MX 440 4x AGP @2x w/ 64Mb DDR
Creative Ensoniq PCI Sound Card
ADS Turbo Quad 4 Port USB PCI Card
Linksys NC100 v2 NIC
Western Digital 8Mb Cache SE 80Gb HD
Lite-On 52x32x52 CDR/RW
Lite-On 16x48 DVD

Current
----------
Athlon XP-A(Barton) 2600+ @ 1.91Ghz
Abit NF7-S v2.0
512Mb Kingston 3200 DDR(2.5-3-3-7)
VisionTek GeForce 4 MX 440 4x AGP w/ 64Mb DDR
monaro327
Veteran K6'er
Posts: 314
Joined: Sun Jun 03, 2001 5:14 am
Contact:

Post by monaro327 »

i don't think windows will like you during it's installation process like you ejecting the winxp cd and inserting a new one and then reinserting the win cd again and continouing with the installation. might work though.
Athlon XP-M 2500+ 2444mhz
Geforce 6800le(16pp/6vp) OC 405/825mhz
wd800jb hdd
wd200bb hdd
40gig Seagate IV
1gig ddr ram
Epox 8RDA3+
sblive 5.1
Pioneer 110D DVD Burner
Logitech Z3e & MX518 + EVERGLIDE FUZE
_____________________
User avatar
tazwegion
Veteran K6'er
Posts: 349
Joined: Sat Jun 21, 2003 11:13 am
Location: Victoria, Australia

Post by tazwegion »

Sorry to hear about your FDD controller mishap...

Had exactly the same scenerio on an Intel chipset mobo, FDD controller went down, I tried a FDD and nothing, so I swapped it out for another and... nothing, it registered in bootup & passed...

Sad thing was it was systematically killing my FDD's... till the situation dawned on me as I tried to install one of it's former FDD's.

Your best option (as already mentioned) is copy the files to CD... and through your Device manager find the card and update the driver manually :wink:
Guest

Post by Guest »

Thanks for the advice.
The problem is not accessing the files themselves because I downloaded them and put them on a floppy on another machine in the first place.
The problem is getting them to install as part of the installation process.
I thought about putting the files on a CD but Windows installer demands a floppy???
feizex
Veteran K6'er
Posts: 322
Joined: Wed Jul 11, 2001 7:48 pm
Contact:

fdd

Post by feizex »

If all else fails you could always go to your local computer market and get a second hand FDD controller. You may have to get a multi I/O controller and disable the other ports (HDD, serial, parallel).

It will probably be ISA but it should only cost $5 - 10.
User avatar
tazwegion
Veteran K6'er
Posts: 349
Joined: Sat Jun 21, 2003 11:13 am
Location: Victoria, Australia

Re: fdd

Post by tazwegion »

feizex wrote:If all else fails you could always go to your local computer market and get a second hand FDD controller. You may have to get a multi I/O controller and disable the other ports (HDD, serial, parallel).

It will probably be ISA but it should only cost $5 - 10.
Actually in my case I tried this also... with dire results to my third FDD :(

Needless to say... the motherboard was promptly executed! :twisted:
feizex
Veteran K6'er
Posts: 322
Joined: Wed Jul 11, 2001 7:48 pm
Contact:

heh

Post by feizex »

That does sound wierd.
User avatar
tazwegion
Veteran K6'er
Posts: 349
Joined: Sat Jun 21, 2003 11:13 am
Location: Victoria, Australia

Post by tazwegion »

It was the first and last time I ever purchase an Intel chipset motherboard... :wink:
Super_Relay
Site Admin
Posts: 215
Joined: Sat Jun 02, 2001 5:53 pm
Location: Australia

Post by Super_Relay »

when you boot from a cd that has been made with an image of a bootable floppy and burned with nero it looks to the system as the A drive contains whatever was in the image and im pretty sure the other files on the disc show up as d: (or whatever letter comes after your last hard disc)

now im not sure if you can start an XP install from dos but it might be worth a try.

mabey worth investigating further anyway
Jim
K6'er Elite
Posts: 1745
Joined: Wed Jan 21, 2004 7:10 pm
Location: Toronto

Post by Jim »

Removed
Last edited by Jim on Sun Aug 07, 2005 6:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Revhead
K6'er
Posts: 76
Joined: Sun Aug 19, 2001 6:18 pm
Location: Sydnoir Oztralia

Post by Revhead »

Thanks,
Well after a lot of mucking around I have managed to get the floppy working.
BUT . . .
For the life of me I can't get drivers to install for the controller card nor can I get it to recognise hard disks when I hook them up - floppy or no floppy.
I think part of the problem is that the driver is not up to date.
They list a W2K driver (which is not installed as a SCSI device) and an IDE/Raid driver for XP, but it is not actually a RAID enabled card.
I emailed the manufacturer but of course got no reply.
This RAID controller is installed as a SCSI device and must apparently be installed as part of the Windows install process with the F6 option.
When you insert card the card BIOS boots and looks for devices but as soon as you hook up the cables it no longer searches and therefore boot does not occur.
Catch 22?
Thanks, Revhead
XP-M Barton 2500+@2530(11.5x220), Albatron KX18D Pro II, Antec 480W, TT Silent Boost 90mm, 2x256 DC Kingmax PC3500, RAID 2x80G SATA, GF2MX400, NEC 3500, LiteOn 832s, Liteon 166s, XP Pro SP1a
K6-III+450@600(6x100) 2.1v, FOP32, SP-A586B, 512M PC133, 20G 100/7200, Kyro II, Vibra128, XP Pro SP1a (retired)
K6-III+450@550(5.5x100) 2.1v Compaq Presario 1685 notebook
Jim
K6'er Elite
Posts: 1745
Joined: Wed Jan 21, 2004 7:10 pm
Location: Toronto

Post by Jim »

Removed
Last edited by Jim on Sun Aug 07, 2005 6:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
Guest

Post by Guest »

I have found the trick to getting the card BIOS to find devices is to first disable your hard disks in mobo setup.
This way I can get the board to find and recognise them and although it finds and recognises CD-ROM too if I connect that, you can't boot from the CD while it is attached to card - only from board.
Having said all that, I have been able to start XP install this way, but it crashes out or freezes without completing.
I am beginning to think the problem is either a bad CD reader or a damaged install disc, because after changing the CD drive I started to get can't copy this file is corrupt messages.
Still wondering whether you need to install card as a SCSI or RAID device or let Windows do its thing?
Post Reply