tokyoracer wrote:

Soon as I powered it on it booted into a fairly fresh install of 98SE, not really ideal or fun to use for this CPU so I'd like to revert it back to 95 OSR2.

FYI, OSR2 isn't going to make much of a difference.

Anyone know where else I might look? Could the IDE controller be fubarred?

Even if the IDE controller had a problem, the floppy drive ought to work. Does booting from the floppy drive still not work if you unplug the hard drive completely? Have you been able to test the boot floppy on other computers? Perhaps the cable is plugged in upside-down at one end or the other.

Thanks for the suggestions, il have a play with the cables and get back to you.

To answer some questions, I know the drives work fine on other computers. Just for some reason, the CD-ROM and floppy drives won't read on my PI setup.

I agree with Jorpho. Check the cable for proper orientation, and also try swapping the floppy cable if you have spares. That does sound to me like the cable is upside down. Usually the red stripe goes toward the power connector on the floppy drive, and toward the 1 on the mobo.

Try some other drives and cables if that doesn't solve it better really start digging in the bios for anything odd or you got a board level issue. I have run into this a few times sadly and the only easy fix when all else fails is to go with a pci controller.

Tried all the methods suggested here, different drives and cables. The cables are definitely the right way round, but alas, still the same outcome. Il have to see if eBay yealds anything for a PCI solution. Thanks anyway guys.

Oh and there's no BIOS option I can see that might alter the A: drive in any way other than boot sequence.

To be quite clear, I would expect the floppy drive and the IDE controller to be pretty much entirely independent one one another. If both components are starting to randomly fail, then your motherboard probably has serious problems and there is no point in trying to patch it up with a "PCI solution" – it's time to get a new motherboard.

Jorpho wrote:

To be quite clear, I would expect the floppy drive and the IDE controller to be pretty much entirely independent one one another. If both components are starting to randomly fail, then your motherboard probably has serious problems and there is no point in trying to patch it up with a "PCI solution" – it's time to get a new motherboard.

Considered this, I did try an ISA ccontroller I have spare just to try and I get the usual "DISK BOOT FAILURE". The fact it detects the drives fine but doesn't want to read from them suggests to me an issue with a hardware component responsible for handling data transfer.

Sad as it does boot and run well with an OS pre-installed but no good if I can't run CD-ROMs and floppys. I think I will just replace it with a 386 mobo I have somewhere laying about looking for a home, and it's a pretty cool case that suits the more pre Pentium era. 😀

Il post it up on here when I'm done. Hopefully that will end better than this!

Just find another board, AT socket 5/7 boards are often dirt cheap on eBay at least in the states if you give it some time. VX boards are very very low demand so your odds of getting a new one are good even nos, HX and TX they can be a little more expensive but not by much.

Maybe just clean the floppy-drive-head?

Can you try the floppy drive in another computer?

Can you set type of floppy drive in bios? 720KB 1,2, 1,44, 2,88 MB? (1.44 should be right)
Can you enable or disable floppy mode 3 in Bios?

Sammy wrote:

Maybe just clean the floppy-drive-head? […]
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Maybe just clean the floppy-drive-head?

Can you try the floppy drive in another computer?

Can you set type of floppy drive in bios? 720KB 1,2, 1,44, 2,88 MB? (1.44 should be right)
Can you enable or disable floppy mode 3 in Bios?

He said he tried different floppy drives and the problem is there with all of them.

try cleaning the board

that reminds me of a P III Machine i bought years ago...

It works but has read errors on the CD-Drive.

After long search i found out it was Flashed with the wrong bios version.
i flashed the bios with the Version for this board revision and its rock solid since then.

That story was just an idea what can be the error too

clueless1 wrote:

He said he tried different floppy drives and the problem is there with all of them.

Hmm, did he also try different cables ? I often had trouble with cables. Changing them or connecting them in the reverse order or upside-down sometimes worked for me.