[vox-tech] floppy madness

[Peter Jay Salzman]

hi jim,

well, i got my wish.

i was finally able to run the BIOS update utility.  it appeared to work
and checksummed ok.

but now the system is hosed.  the CPUs register as "overheated" the
second BIOS starts to post and the heat warning alarm comes on
immediately.  can't boot off the cdrom anymore.  BIOS doesn't post when
both CPUs are in the machine at the same time.  definitely hosed.

well, i took a gamble and lost.  i probably should've just bought
another hard drive instead of trying to update BIOS.  but this system
was always a little flakey.  all the components were taken from junked
computers.  aside from the motherboard, the whole thing was parted out
from friends' computers that were being junked.

sigh.  i guess i'm more upset over the TIME it took to destroy my
computer rather than losing the system.  ;-(

anyway, now i REALLY wish i could take you up on your offer, but we
no longer live in CA.  we moved to princeton new jersey.

i guess this is the end of the thread.  sigh.

pete




On Wed 28 Apr 04, 10:21 AM, Jimbo <evesautomotive@charter.net> said:
> If your wife wants windows 95, I have an old cd with key that can be booted
> and installed by the cd rom.  I have installed windows so many times I know
> it almost by heart.  If she doesn't want 95 I have 98  (both versions)
> that's just the same.
> 
> You can have them so it can be all legal beagle.
> 
> Jimbo go go go go!
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Peter Jay Salzman" <p@dirac.org>
> To: <vox-tech@lists.lugod.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, April 27, 2004 9:57 PM
> Subject: [vox-tech] floppy madness
> 
> 
> > I bought an 80GB drive for an old dual PII motherboard (Gigabit
> > GA-6BXD).  Ultimate goal is to move a previous Linux installation which
> > is currently on a failing drive onto the new drive.
> >
> > BIOS can't detect the new drive at all.  It hangs on autodetection.
> >
> > Googling revealed that I need to update the BIOS of the motherboard to
> > recognize drives greater than 64GB.
> >
> >
> > I have win95 on a floppy.  Goal is to boot win95 and run the executable
> > that upgrades BIOS.
> >
> > The trouble is, BIOS won't boot off the floppy.  It doesn't even
> > recognize the floppy drive at boot.
> >
> >    * I moved the floppy to another, newer, computer and it booted off
> >      the win95 floppy just fine.
> >
> >    * Cabling is good.  Switching the ribbon around, the drive light
> >      doesn't go off, which means I had it right the first time.
> >
> >    * I set BIOS to boot off of "A" first.
> >
> >    * BIOS floppy autodetect is set to "enabled".
> >
> >    * It appears that the computer doesn't even *attempt* to read the
> >      floppy at boot.
> >
> >    * When I boot Linux, I can mount the floppy with no problems.  I just
> >      can't boot off it.
> >
> >    * In Linux, I used dd to copy and create a new win95 floppy, just in
> >      case the problem is that the drive couldn't read the floppy made by
> >      another drive.  Didn't work.  But considering the computer doens't
> >      even make the attempt to read the floppy, I'm not surprised.
> >
> > I'm ready to get a new, smaller, drive.  Before I do, any suggestions on
> > what could be preventing booting off the win95 floppy?
> >
> > Pete
> >
> > PS- Gigabyte sucks.  Their motherboards are decent, but their website
> > crashes galeon and causes havoc and chaos with Opera.  Completely
> > non-functional.
> >
> > -- 
> > Make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler.  -- Albert Einstein
> > GPG Instructions: http://www.dirac.org/linux/gpg
> > GPG Fingerprint: B9F1 6CF3 47C4 7CD8 D33E 70A9 A3B9 1945 67EA 951D
> > _______________________________________________
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> >
> 
> 
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-- 
Make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler.  -- Albert Einstein
GPG Instructions: http://www.dirac.org/linux/gpg
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