laptop problems

[rivfs]

here is the problem when I boot up I get "Disk drive A: error"
then I get message to press f1 to continue or f2 to enter setup.
Ok I can continue but only to find out that my floppy drive doesn't work nor does my printer. Ok so I reboot and go to setup (f2)
this system has phoenix BIOS. On the main page it reads that I have a have
Diskette drive: 1.44 on par.port
Is this my problem? the floppy is a swapable with cdrom and the cdrom works. It is a
Texas Instruments Travelmate computer

[JimG]

Sounds like your disk drive may have suffered some damage. Based on the fact that the CD-ROM works, the port is fine. Did you accidently drop or severly bump your disk drive recently?
Easiest way of finding out is to borrow someone else's disk drive and try theirs. That'll tell you real quick where the problem lies. Your BIOS settings sound ok, but there might be a setting that needs changing, and that could be your problem.
Good luck!

[rivfs]

I guess I forgot to mention that the floppy is in a modular bay not the parellel port that the BIOS is sayin it is now on. Since it now wants the floppy on the par. port the printer no longer responds. The floppy is rarely used. The cdrom is in the modular bay most of the time or it is empty (for weight reasons)The diskett A error continues to come up durning boot up, no mater what I put into the modular bay.
The BIOS reads:
"diskett drive 1.44 on par. port"
"modular bay contents:diskett drive" (or empty or cdrom depending on what is in modular bay)
the disk drive was nerver on the parallel port.
It is an older model notebook and Acer tech support is terrible.
First I am told that the floppy shoud not hold onto the par. port, Then after I tell them that I see in the BIOS that the floppy is on par. port all they can say is - on what page am I seeing this? like I would say it if I did not see it? There are files on the hard drive I want to move to my pc I need the floppy to do this hence I want to get it to work. any help or ideas appreciated.
I am think the motherboard may be bad or bad chips to the port?

[BC]

Is there a way to disable the boot from floppy? I have a newer dell so I know what you are talking about when you say the floppy is on the par. port. I have my CD in most of the time too. The floppy is rarely used. I don't think that my bios states where the floppy is though. you may have to look at the setting of lpt1 or par port depemding on the bios.

[UncaDanno]

Here's a long shot for ya.

Take the drive out and put it back in a couple of times. Could be a loose/cruddy connector. Check 'em visually, too.

Happened with an old laptop I dealt with a couple of years ago.

[Mntsnow]

It sound like to me you need to enter the BIOS as reconfigure your floppy drive and tell it to use the FDC (floppy disk contoller) instead of the PPORT. I say this because you said Ok so I reboot and go to setup (f2)
this system has phoenix BIOS. On the main page it reads that I have a have
Diskette drive: 1.44 on par.port

Mntsnow

[Mntsnow]

Hmmmmm...I dont know anything about the TI travelmate's...let me see what I can find. (Which model of travelmate is it?)

Mntsnow

ps. I bet it might have something to do with the "docking" as those are setup to represent different system configurations.

[rivfs]

to Mtsnow it is a travelmat 6050nt running win95. If you can find anything out I would appreciate it.

[rivfs]

To BC yes I can disable the floppy check for boot up and then it boots up fine without stopping but I still don't have a working floppy disk drive because it still says it is on the par. port.
Here is a list of what I have tried.
1 removung the floppy and booting with no drive in modular bay.
2 booting up with the cdrom in modular bay.
3 there are three setting for the par. port
[off, 278, and 378] in three different areas,
intergrated periferial
docking station A
and docking station B
I have turned them in succession to default[378] to off then to 278 to no avail.Right now I am on default in all areas.
To Mtsnow there does not appear to be a way to change the floppy disk setting in this BIOS.
While I get the message
"Diskette drive:1.44 on par. port"
the very next message is
"Media bay content: Diskett drive(or empty, or cdrom)"depending on what if anything is in media bay.So how do I reconfigure the floppy? This problem was first noticed when the printer was trying to be accessed and it failed and went into an offline mode. now the par. port wants a floppy and I don't know how to fix that. The phoenix BIOS has very little to change, that I can see.
And BC before this problem arose my BIOS did not say the floppy to be on par. port it was just-
Diskett drive 1.44
Any more ideas.

[Mntsnow]

Well Sheeze...I chased down atleast 15 dead links and find NOTHING concerning the bios options for that dang laptop. But I'm still working on it http://www.sysopt.com/forum/frown.gif

Mntsnow

[rivfs]

Thank you everyone.
I am still waiting to hear from Acer a response to this issue.
You are all wonderful for helping me

[rivfs]

Well I finally heard from Acer. this is what they had to say:"It would appear that there is something wrong with the par. port hardware wise that would cause the BIOS to detect that the floppy drive is connected there. It may be something internal to the motherboard or a broken pin on the port. This issue will require the unit to be serviced."
Now if this were my pc I would look into doing it myself but a laptop ....

[BC]

Yes and you probibly can't just "open" it up to see if there are loose connections on the MB for that thing. I have opened mine up a couple of times to reconnect the keyboard and stuff but not completly since it is still under warranty. I would suggest you do this to get it working. (Maybe) If you disable boot from floppy can you still get the printer to work on the par. port? If not does this thing have a USB port? If it does and it is Win95b then you can get a par-usb adapter and get it to work that way. Other than that I don't know shy of getting it fixed. Some places locally can fix like compaq,acer,toshiba type LT's


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