# bios thinks I have floppy drive when I dont



## MARKO (Apr 21, 2007)

hi guys title says it all really when I load up my pc the bios fails to load my non existent floppy drive and makes me press F1 to continue the sequence, how do I make it realise there isnt one there,,???,,,,,, I am having ocasional problems with vista not loading up properally and after running the start up health check on the cd it has given the impresion that my non existent floppy drive may be the cause of this problem,,,,,,, just in case you need the info my motherboard is an msi platinum intel dual core compatable one, cant remember the exact name its a new one though very nice,,,,,, will be really gratfull of any help I have looked in the bios and removed the floppy from the boot sequence already BTW,,, cheers,,, mark


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## 8210GUY (Aug 29, 2006)

*Re: bios thinks I have floppy drive when I don't*

You say your bios shows the drive, but at what point do you mean ?
But you should be able to go into the bios and find your drives listed, then select the A drive and select none\disabled (whatever option you get) and that should stop it finding and looking for something that isn't there and cure your problem.


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## MARKO (Apr 21, 2007)

nice one thank you for that I have stopped it trying to load the FD,,,,,,, problem is it hasnt solved my problem where by vista does not load everytime I boot up. Basically it either gets stuck on the screen with the microsoft text and moving green dot or it never loads after this screen and the screen stays blank,,,,,,,,I am running a new build pc, any advice?


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## 8210GUY (Aug 29, 2006)

*Re: bios thinks I have floppy drive when I don't*

Could be any number of things without knowing more TBH, lets start with the bios as thats where we left off, go into your bios and look for the boot order, set it so your hard drive is the 1st boot device followed by the CD\DVD and disable any further boot devices it may list\offer and tell it NOT to search for other drives or floppy media in the boot process, I'm wondering if it's doing this because it is still looking for the floppy, hopefully this should cure that if it is what is happening.

Also if your using Sata\raid make sure you check there isn't a boot priority list, if there is go into the hard drives priority's and make sure your boot drive is the first listed drive, but without knowing your hardware set up you may not have\need these options, but you should still be able to set the boot order as I described, see how that goes, if your still not getting anywhere take a look in the bios again for a hardware monitor utility, most boards have them these days, just take a note of the CPU temps and report back with them and include your hardware spec so we can see what your dealing with then we can see what else may be needed.


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## MARKO (Apr 21, 2007)

first of all thank you for your help it is very much appriciated.

the hard drive is set to first and dvd drive to second with other stuff all disabled like you said.

I am using a SATA drive I looked in the bios and found a list entitled IDE primary etc and my only hardrive was defaulted to "IDE third master" I couldnt find any way of changing this and I am unsure if this matters or not.

With regard to the CPU it was 49c with the fan speed at 1562 and system temp at 38c (is this enuff or you need the whole lot?) 

something I have noticed and is a real pain is that I am running the MSI Dual Core Cenre on my desk top and the alarm is constantly going off. the problem seems to be in the motherboard fan speed section where CPU and System have purple flashing numbers.... the CPU one varies very quickly from 786 up to 970 and the system one is on around 22...... I dont really know how to use this utility and cant work out how to change it...

my full set up is as follows:

_Novatech GeForce 7600GT PCI-E 256MB DDR3 DVI/TVO SLI graphics card

Intel dual core e6600 CPU

msi 975x platinum power up motherboard

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 500GB SATA II 7200rpm 16Mb Cache 11ms 300Mb/s hard drive

2 gigs of ram

hyper 580 power supply

vista home premium_

I built the system myself and its my first one so I could have done something wrong, it does go into vista most of the time it just takes a few goes sometimes, also occasionaly the monitor does not come on when I boot up but I re sat my graphics card and ram and this seems to have solved that problem


thanks again


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## 8210GUY (Aug 29, 2006)

*Re: bios thinks I have floppy drive when I don't*

NP, well the temps don't overly concern me at this stage (yes it was enough info for me), but looking at your cooling may be something to consider after this is sorted.

Now you mention that utility, I just had a battle with this Abit set up with it's software, because my CPU fan is powered via molex and not the motherboard it kept thinking I was in trouble and shutting me down, took me a while to figure that one out lol, so to start I suggest disabling that software and see if that helps, if it does then we need to tell it to ignore the CPU fan speed.

Now with you drive, do you only have the 1 hard drive ?
If so then it should be set OK I would of thought, but if the drive that is your boot drive is not the 1st one listed in the priority's section then try using the Page up\down button to move it to first place.

See if any f this helps, I'll check back tomorrow when I get up to see how you went.


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## MARKO (Apr 21, 2007)

Hi thanks for the quick late night response,I do only have one HD at the mo yes, I have another 500gb waiting to go in once I have some converters to SATA,,, the drive is unmovable from the third primary positon I think cant shift it at all,,,,,,,, I dont know wether the problem may be that I havnt updated my BIOS since I set up the PC? can use the MSI live update but you need a floppy drive so I havnt got round to putting the one out of my old PC in yet?? also do you think it may be vista itself? have try the repair utility to no avail but I dont wehter I copuld just re-install over the top like you could do in xp,,?,,,, gunna give it break now too any way but thanks for your help and let me know what you think when you get chance,,,,:smile:


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## 8210GUY (Aug 29, 2006)

*Re: bios thinks I have floppy drive when I don't*

OK you can't change it because it isn't a priority setting, it's just telling you which Sata port you are connected to, I would change it to the #1 port personally, I just like having things in logical order, but being Sata it shouldn't really make a difference, if you do want to swap it to the#1 port then it is the bottom one of the set of 4 ports furthest away from thew ide connections, it is NOT the the one further down on it's own (possibly blue ?), that is port #5, the group of 4 ports are listed s port #4 next to the ide drives connection through to #1 being the furthest away of the group.

What I would try first is going into the device manager and check there are no conflicts reported, this is shown via an exclamation mark, if you see this you need to install tie drivers for that item, so check everything is as it should be.

During the following I may omit to hit Esc to get to where you need to be, if so use common sense and look for the title I mention each time, it's never as easy doing this from text as it is sat there in front of you.

Assumig that fails try a CMOS reset, I've seen many a crazy situation get out of hand and all sots tried before trying the one thing that was the simplest to check, so with the system powered down, unplug the mains lead, then with the side of the case open press the CMOS reset button, it should be just underneath the Sata port #5 (the blue one ?), it will be a square fixed to the board with a black circle on it, it wont look like a switch as you may expect to see, but once you press it you will feel it's a definite push button switch, so press it then wait a minute or so (just playing safe) then plug the mains back in nd power on, you will now get an error about the CMOS saying defaults are loaded, it will offer you a chance to go into the settings to check them, do that, alternately you can just enter the bios as soon as you boot but either way we need to set your bios up again.

OK now go into the 1st option (Standard CMOS Features) and set the date & time, use the arrow keys to move around in there, use the page up\own keys to change them, and Esc (escape) to return to the previous menu each time when needed.
Once you set the time and date repeat the earlier task of telling it there is NO A drive, now hit the Esc button to return to the previous menu and move on to the next.

Now go into the Advanced BIOS Features menu, now go into the CPU Feature menu and ensure the SpeedStep is enabled, and under Thermal Management check it is set to 1, the settings are apparently 1 or 2, but have a look and check if you have a 1 & 2 setting, if you do select that instead, now check that Execute Disable Bit is enabled as well as Virtualization Technology then hit Esc to go back to the previous menu, under that go to Hard Disk Boot Priority an set it like we did before, now move down to Boot Sector Protection and set it to enabled, same with Quick Boot and APIC Mode, then disable Boot to OS/2 and Full Screen LOGO Display, now hit Esc to go back to the main screen.

Go into Advanced Chipset Features and set PEG Force X1 to enabled then back out to the main screen again, now go into Integrated Peripherals and check the following are enabled:- USB (all of them), keyboard\mouse (if required), audio, IEEE1394, LAN, and with PCI-E Compliancy Mode try using v1.0a, now with Onboard JMB361 Mode I'm not 100%, but as we are using a Sata drive I would set it to raid to start with, if it works ten leave it, if not try ide, but I think raid is probably right, now go to IDE Devices Configuration and check the following are set to enabled:- IDE HDD Block Mode, PCI IDE BusMaster, OnChip Primary PCI IDE, now under the IDE Primary Master/Slave PIO and IDE Primary Master/Slave UDMA set them to auto.
Now under SATA Devices Configuration set SATA Mode to ide as you aren't using raid, then with On-Chip Serial ATA set it to Auto, BUT, if you see an enhanced setting select that instead (the screenshot and text differ in the manual here hence my doubt).

Now move onto PNP/PCI Configurations, set Init Display First to PCI Ex as you have that card.
Go to H/W Monitor and set CPU Smart Fan Temperature to 70 degrees, this will help protect your CPU.

Now press F10 and save and exit (confirm any prompts to do this), it will now reboot and with any luck should start up, and I seriously hope t has cured your issue lol, see how this goes and let us know, just remember anything in the bios I have not mentioned just leave alone, also you may very well find a lot of these settings are already set to what I have said, if so thats fine just move onto the next, hope it helps.


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## MARKO (Apr 21, 2007)

hi mate really sorry for the huge delay in reply I have had my net cut off for the past month or so...... right I did all the cmos stuff and it hasnt worked, also I did notice there was a confilct with network adapters "6T04" and "ISATAP" I cant update or fix these I dont think until I get back on line but do you think this could be the problem?? cheers, mark.


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## speedster123 (Oct 18, 2006)

The drivers for these are on your motherboard disk. Remove them then reboot and direct windows to the folder on the disk when prompted.
Do you have a floppy cable on the mainboard free floating?


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## MARKO (Apr 21, 2007)

I might have left a floppy cable with nothing plugged in actually mate yes will check when I get home and sort the drivers then report back... cheers for the help


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## MARKO (Apr 21, 2007)

urrrrrg its still not worked guys, I check inside and I havnt got any loose cables, the only one which is hanging with nothing plugged in is the one which connects the master and slave cd drives (i only have one drive) do you think it could be anything to do with the fact that I havnt used all the connections on the back of the power supply?


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## speedster123 (Oct 18, 2006)

> do you think it could be anything to do with the fact that I havnt used all the connections on the back of the power supply?


No, it shouldnt.

In your bios, where it shows your drives, can you remove it? Try the device manager.

Then reset your cmos.


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## ebackhus (Apr 21, 2005)

Aside from telling the BIOS not to use a 720K or 1.44MB floppy you'll also need to disable the controller. This can often be found under Advanced Features or Integrated Features in the BIOS setup.


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## BrianTwigley (Jun 13, 2005)

I had the same problem. Just find the setting saying Diskette Drive or something like that in your first Bios menu and set it to none.


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## MARKO (Apr 21, 2007)

thanks for the tips will try everything tonight and report back.ray:


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## ebackhus (Apr 21, 2005)

Good luck with the work! I know from personal experience how annoying a phantom A: drive can be.


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## MARKO (Apr 21, 2007)

ok guys I tried all this and still it hasnt worked, I disabled the A drive controller so it has now become clear that the "phantom" A drive is not the problem. Just to reiterate what the actual problem is, the PC is a new build and does not consitantly load up windows when I boot up. It gets stuck on the microsoft screen with the moving green dot or the vista logo screen does not load at all,,,,,, any more advice? I really would like to avoide having to take the pc into a repair shop as if I managed to build the thing I would like to think I could fix it but it is getting to the stage when I think this may be the only option?


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