Just to ask the obvious, but is the turbo button/switch set to on?

I was thinking the same thing after watching that video.
Seems strange that it should load MSCDEX that slowly simply due to slightly wrong jumper settings.

Well, indeed the turbo wasn't ON. BUT, Here is a video with the turbo enabled :

http://youtu.be/k53ikBoOuLc

Another issue I jut found since I can now consistently boot on drive A:. I can't boot from the harddrive 🙁 I can access it, fdisk it, format it, etc, but when I remove the floppy, nothing happens after post. no message, nothing. The computer is not hanged, it just doesn't do anything.

I am using a 250gb HDD. the bios is configured at a 2gb LBA drive. DOS sees it as a 8gb drive. maybe there is my problem, not sure.

Have you got a smaller drive to test with, or perhaps a CF-IDE adapter + CF card?
Have you limited the drive capacity via a jumper on the HDD?
Larger, more modern drives can be difficult to get to work on older controllers.
Hope you find a way to get the system up and running properly soon 😀

LunarG wrote:

1. Have you got a smaller drive to test with, or perhaps a CF-IDE adapter + CF card? 2. Have you limited the drive capacity via […]
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1. Have you got a smaller drive to test with, or perhaps a CF-IDE adapter + CF card?
2. Have you limited the drive capacity via a jumper on the HDD?
Larger, more modern drives can be difficult to get to work on older controllers.
Hope you find a way to get the system up and running properly soon 😀

1. : No
2. : No, the drive does not have that option.

What is the most common drive combo you guys use on these retro stuff ?

I'm using the same HDD on the Biostar build, without any issue...