Hmm. Do the lights on the floppy drive light up and did you run CheckIt! on that system ?
Maybe the DMA controller is having trouble. The Floppy Disk Controller uses DMA2/IRQ6.
Also make sure things like EMM386 or UMBPCI are not running while you are testing.

(It is unlikely, but sometimes a too slow/fast ISA bus can cause trouble with floppy drives.
Same with certain IDE drives or Compact Flash cards.)

Jo22 wrote:

Hmm. Do the lights on the floppy drive light up and did you run CheckIt! on that system ?

The lights light up , i can't run anything on the machine as the floppy isn't working and it's the only way to get information into the machine.

Jo22 wrote:

Maybe the DMA controller is having trouble. The Floppy Disk Controller uses DMA2/IRQ6.
Also make sure things like EMM386 or UMBPCI are not running while you are testing.

so how would i go about check for those?

Jo22 wrote:

(It is unlikely, but sometimes a too slow/fast ISA bus can cause trouble with floppy drives.
Same with certain IDE drives or Compact Flash cards.)

well if it at all help the machine is using the original drives all the way around. So at least i know that it technically COULD work

If you boot bypassing startup files by pressing F8 will make sure emm386, or anything have loaded.
Not to sure how to check DMA, I have Norton Utilities but I's sure something free is available for dos

I would also try another cable, I would have blamed the drive but you have eliminated that as a possibility

I must admit that I'm not really familiar with Packard Bell systems, thus I will ask...is the floppy controller built into the motherboard, or is it on a separate card? If it is on a separate card, have you tried moving the card to a different slot? Oxidization on one or more of the pins could conceivably cause issues, although to what degree I could not say due to having never encountered this specific problem myself.

In a similar vein to what I said above...have you tried a different cable? It's possible the cable that came with that old computer could have some breaks or oxidization preventing some of the data lines from working, thus causing the soft lock when trying to access the drive. It might also be worth trying to clean the floppy connector on the motherboard/controller card with some deoxit or similar.

You also said that you had checked the BIOS settings...have you tried resetting the BIOS outright, either by selecting the Load Defaults option or by pulling the backup battery for a few minutes? I doubt this is the cause, but it's still something worth trying.

You said the access light will come on when trying to read a disk...but do you hear the disk spinning? Again, having never encountered this exact problem I cannot say for sure if this is the cause, but just a theory on my part could be the power connector being faulty, or again possibly have a broken cable. I'll confess a lack of technical knowledge to the intimate workings of a floppy drive, but my thinking is that if the drive is receiving 5V but not 12V, the circuitry and whatnot of the drive might work, but it will be unable to spin. Perhaps, if possible, try a different power connector.

Just some random ideas of things to check to hopefully help either solve the problem or at least eliminate potential causes.

Easy things first: try the floppy drive on your other (working) machine. If it doesn't work, it's the floppy. We'll take it from there then.

emosun wrote:

Jo22 wrote:

Maybe the DMA controller is having trouble. The Floppy Disk Controller uses DMA2/IRQ6.
Also make sure things like EMM386 or UMBPCI are not running while you are testing.

so how would i go about check for those?

Hi, CheckIt! checks the DMA channels if you select the mainboard test.

IRQ6, on the other hand, can be checked by Microsoft Diagnostics (MSD).
(CheckIt! also can show IRQs, but usually does not list any floppy controllers)

Edit: You can also give Dr. Hardware a try. 😀
Maybe it can do similar tests (I am not sure, since it has been a while since I used it).
Dr. Hardware Sysinfo (DOS) - Versions Archive

Jo22 wrote:

Hi, CheckIt! checks the DMA channels if you select the mainboard test. […]
Show full quote

Hi, CheckIt! checks the DMA channels if you select the mainboard test.

IRQ6, on the other hand, can be checked by Microsoft Diagnostics (MSD).
(CheckIt! also can show IRQs, but usually does not list any floppy controllers)

Edit: You can also give Dr. Hardware a try. 😀
Maybe it can do similar tests (I am not sure, since it has been a while since I used it).
Dr. Hardware Sysinfo (DOS) - Versions Archive

Are both of those located on the hard drive? Because the floppy doesn't work.

Alright i tried a new floppy drive and new cable , made sure it recognized that it was plugged in and being identified correctly. (essentially fool proof as there is only one way it can be connected without displaying an error or locking u the machine)

Still doesn't work , just tries to seek the drive then softlocks the machine.