Help with 486sx setup

[RBooze]

This antiquated system has both a 5.25 and 3.5 Floppies. The 5.25 as "A"Drive and the 3.5 as "B". The 5.25 was removed from the system and the BIOS changed to show the 3.5 as "A"Drive. Boot sequence shows "A,C". The system however will NOT boot from the 3.5FDD.
The Floppy Drive has been checked in another system, and it works great. The new floppy drive was checked on the 486sx and it would not work on that system either. It seems to still want to use the 5.25 drive as the boot drive although it is removed from the system.

We're stumped and need help. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[scotter]

are you conecting the drive to the end conecter on the cable the one that has the twist in the cable going to it ?
it has to be conected at the end, NOT to any of the middle ones.
then in bios make the A or #1 floppy the 3.5, the B or #2 should say NONE or something such http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

you might try a diff cable if that is not it http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

[RBooze]

Thanks for the response Scott. Yes, the 3.5 is connected at the end of the cable and the BIOS has been set to "A". The old 5.5 has been set to "None installed". Boot Sequence is set to "A,C".

[Ed_S]

Beg to differ on this one. Just built a 486sx with both drives last week.
"A" goes before the twist (nearest the MB), "B" after.

Or check in bios - look for "swap floppy drives" and enable if found.

[scotter]

I have never seen one like that where the floppy A is in the middle of the cable but then I've not had the chance to play with every thing yet http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif any way if that is not it or does not work this is what else I can think of make sure the bios is set floppy 1 to 1.44 3.5" the cables are installed correctly
if all that is correct then try reseating the controler card in the mobo also try a diff cable if none of that works then I would look at finding anothere controler card to try
that's all I can think of
hope it helps http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif


[This message has been edited by scotter (edited 12-05-1999).]

[Alzarius]

Well, first off. Was there anything wrong with the old setup? Were the 5 1/4 and 3 1/2 drives working just fine? If so, put em back. They certainly don't hurt anything since they are on a floppy cable. Heck, I've got a Teac dual 5 1/4 - 3 1/2 drive. Coolest thing this side of the Mississippi river... And yep, I've still got and am hoping to find old games, many of which used 5 1/4 inch disks... 5 1/4 inch drive tied to a Celeron 400 and 64 megs of PC 100 memory. Haw, makes me laugh sometimes. Old technology doesn't die, it just needs to find a home where someone knows what to do with it.

[RBooze]

Sorry to take so long responding. The system was working ok until my friend decided to format the HD to get rid of 6 years garbage the previous owner had left on it. The 5.25 drive didn't work, so took it out, with intentions of booting off the 3.5 Drive. Big mistake I guess. Attempting to connect in the middle of the cable was a NO GO. All BIOS settings are set to boot off A Drive. Went to 2 stores, but they don't have floppy drive cables. Will go across town to BestBuy and get one when the wife gets back. If that doesn't work, guess I'll get a new controller card, although don't know why it wouldn't be working now when it was before the format. Thanks for the help and ideas. Its very much appreciated as my experience has been with ATX systems and not 486's. Though there might be something I was unaware of. Will let you know If I get it going and what fixed it.

[emcron]

I had a problems like this with 486s. This is what I had to do to get it going. First go to the bios and make sure you have it set for floppy drive b: installed and a: not installed and if you have the feature in the bios to seek fo the floppy drive enable it. Then connect the floppy drive to the second connector. That should do it and let you boot up with a floppy disk.

P.S. If you get an error telling you something about invalid setup, dont worry about it and override it by pressing f1. This has work on the 486s I've work with.

[This message has been edited by emcron (edited 12-05-1999).]

[This message has been edited by emcron (edited 12-05-1999).]

[Alzarius]

Ok, this may be a bit hard to check, but my old 486 board had jumpers to disable ALL of the onboard ports. I used this to install a new controller card that had a 16550 UART so my 33.6 modem would actually work at 33.6. Anyway, see if you can find any labeled jumpers on the board for the floppy port. Maybe the jumper fell off or something. Heck, maybe there's a jumper to set the system to one or 2 floppy drives and you need to change this. Course I'm only guessing as 486 boards and earlier were really spotty in how everything was done and labeled.

Oh, and about slowing my computer down. I really don't for some games. I play the old Starflight game sometimes and the speed isn't a detracting factor. Even with the "realtime" spaceship encounters. Heck, the speed actually helps me whip some alien tail. Imagine how this game ran on my Tandy 1000EX with an 8088 or was it 8086 in the Tandys? at 4.77 mhz. Oh yeah baby! Speed demon there! When I got my 286/12, I thought I had bought a new game since it ran so fast. Anyway, there are slowdown programs and some companies even made patches because of problems on speedier computers. Luckily though, I haven't had much of any problems since I don't really play speed senstive games like Pacman and such.

[RBooze]

Thanks everyone for your help. Unfortunately the system still won't boot from the floppy.I tried emcron's suggestion without success. As for the motherboard jumpers, they are all coded with exception of the LED's, etc. Hell, I can't even find the CMOS jumper. I did get a new cable, which didn't help, and can only think that the Controller Board is faulty. Will pick one up tomorrow after work. Thanks again to everyone who was kind enough to assist me with this problem.

[GVolosky]

I'll be interested in hearing how you get that 400 celeron down to 8 or 16 Mhz to run those games.....