Topic: Invalid Boot Diskette in Drive A:\ (Read 194 times)

Silhouette

#1 February 26, 2008, 06:17:26 pm
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Hey, I rescued a really old Win ME computer from my parents' house and I'm trying to get it to run again. Problem is, when I boot it up, after the splash screen it shows Error: Invalid Boot Diskette in Drive A:\. I have no disk in drive A:, however. How can I fix this problem? (I don't have any original software that came with the computer. I would be willing to reformat everything and install Linux, but I guess it would be cool if I could see if any good files are on the computer first). Thanks for any help!
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Chubby Skelly

#2 February 26, 2008, 06:39:05 pm
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Sounds like maybe a hardware problem with the floppy drive? Can you disconnect the drive and try again?
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dada

#3 February 26, 2008, 07:11:24 pm
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Go into your BIOS and change the boot order to the CD drive, if possible. It's very likely that it'll just state "invalid boot diskette" when it can't find anything in the floppy drive.
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Chubby Skelly

#4 February 26, 2008, 07:22:41 pm
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That could be, but I think pretty much every BIOS ever will fall through to the next item in the boot order if there isn't a disk.
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goat

#5 February 26, 2008, 07:25:06 pm
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Head into your BIOS (usually DEL while your system is showing your memory and drives). Go to "standard cmos features" and set both A: and B: to none. Then go to "advanced bios features" and set BootFloppySeek to Disabled. And then go into "integrated peripherals" and set the Onboard FDC Controller to Disabled. Save and exit, and that error shouldn't appear.
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Silhouette

#6 February 26, 2008, 10:53:48 pm
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Okay, tried changing order/disabling via Dell Dimension 4100 SETUP: didn't work. goat: setup doesn't have near that amount of control but I tried disabling it, still same message.
Here's what I see:
MAIN:
Processor Serial Number enable/disable, system time, system date
ADVANCED:
Boot Configuration:
-Plug & Play O/S yes/no
-Reset Config Data yes/no
-Numlock on/off

Peripheral Configuration:
-Serial Port A disable/enable/auto
-Parallel Port disable/enable/auto
  =mode: output only, bi-directional, EPP, ECP

IDE Configuration:
-IDE Controller disabled/primary/secondary/both
   =Primary IDE Master
   =Primary IDE Slave
   =Secondary IDE Master
   =Secondary IDE Slave

Diskette Configuration:
-Diskette Controller enable/disable
-floppy A
-Diskette write protect enable/disable

Event Log Configuration:
-view event log
-clear all event logs yes/no
-event logging enable/disable
-mark events as read

Video Configuration:
-AGP Aperture Size
-Primary Video Adapter

SECURITY:
Set Supervisor Password
Set User Password

BOOT:
Quiet boot enable/disable
quick boot enable/disable
Restore on AC/Power loss
On LAN
On PME
1st boot device - 4th boot device
IDE Drive Configuration
-Primary + secondary master/slave stuff

EXIT (and all the save options, load defaults, etc.)

Help! And thanks for all the help you've given so far. :)
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Silhouette

#7 February 27, 2008, 03:46:32 pm
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Anyone?
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goat

#8 February 27, 2008, 04:38:37 pm
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Quote
Diskette Configuration:
-Diskette Controller enable/disable
-floppy A

set those to none/disable
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Silhouette

#9 February 27, 2008, 09:32:56 pm
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Okay, I can get into DOS now and use Boot CDs. I'm trying to find a way to fix the HDD w/ Hiren's BootCD but now the system won't recognize I have a HDD installed. Has it finally kicked the bucket? Is there no hope to at least get files off of it?
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goat

#10 February 28, 2008, 04:44:44 pm
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It could be. Does it even show up in bios?
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Silhouette

#11 February 28, 2008, 06:30:44 pm
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No. It doesn't show up anymore in setup. In DOS I tried "C:\" and it showed whatever was on my boot disk.
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goat

#12 February 28, 2008, 08:14:30 pm
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Open up the case and make sure the cables are connected securely to the HDD and motherboard, if that's a no-go I'd wager the drive is gone.
Last Edit: February 28, 2008, 08:16:14 pm by goat
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