Built my first computer, it will not boot up though?

On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 01:43:14 -0700, DevilsPGD
wrote:

In message "Joe"
wrote:

"Trent©" wrote

You need a controller also...and many boards don't come with a
floppy controller anymore.


Are you on drugs or just plain stupid. Go to newegg.com and look threw the
approximately 300 mobos they sell and tell me which ones do not come with a
floppy controller.

You're correct here, I've yet to see any ATX motherboard without a
floppy controller.

Doesn't mean they're not out there! lol

MSI makes a bunch of 'em.

And...I don't keep track of the big boys. But I think they were
tryin' it at one point...and went back to the old way 'cause people
couldn't be sold on the idea.



Have a nice one...

Trent©

Budweiser: Helping ugly people have sex since 1876!

On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 01:43:22 -0700, DevilsPGD
wrote:

In message kony
wrote:

It'd be a whole lot easier if MS would just fix their
software. IMO, there is no excuse for an OS that can start
booting from a drive but then "lose" itself. At the very
least they could've allowed alternate sources for the
driver.

There are a couple things Microsoft could do to the installer that would
solve this problem instantly.

Am I missing something here? What does MSFT have to do with
anything...when the drive hasn't even been partitioned yet...when
first purchased?


Have a nice one...

Trent©

Budweiser: Helping ugly people have sex since 1876!

On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 15:36:39 GMT, kony wrote:

They are many new prebuilts sold without a floppy these days but they
would never need one as they are using dvd or cd drives you can boot from
and not SATA or SCSI drives that need you to install drivers.


Untrue, practically every system has the potential to need a
floppy drive for one thing or another, if not several
things.

Common examples -

User buys new HDD or has questionable/failing HDD, needs
make diagnostic floppy. CDROM may incude simple setup help
but not the diagnostics.

I think what yer sayin' is...he needs to make a diagnostic DISK. Why
couldn't it be a diagnostic CD?

Motherboard bios gets scrambled but boot block still works.
System might boot to floppy to reflash bios but there is NO
other way without pulling EPROM (AFAIK).

Why couldn't it boot from a cd? I don't understand.

One of myriad other utilites are in compressed
self-extracting archives will automatically pop up a "make
floppy" dialog with no option to output elsewhere. User can
make a floppy or quit, no 3rd choice.

That will change when support for floppies is eliminated. And it will
be...soon. After all, the floppy drive is simply a channel...and,
yes... can be set to be the first accessed. Once we have a DEPENDABLE
alternative, the change will take place.

Jump drives might be it...with a USB port as the first boot device.

BTW...as you probably know...jump drives are up to 1 gig now...and
climbing!


Have a nice one...

Trent©

Budweiser: Helping ugly people have sex since 1876!

On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 04:45:39 GMT, Trent©
wrote:


Common examples -

User buys new HDD or has questionable/failing HDD, needs
make diagnostic floppy. CDROM may incude simple setup help
but not the diagnostics.

I think what yer sayin' is...he needs to make a diagnostic DISK. Why
couldn't it be a diagnostic CD?

Sure, if one both knows how and wants to go to the trouble
of compiling it every time. Often though it's simplified
such that user puts int he original CD and is given choice
"insert floppy", then they make the floppy or they don't.
Whether the floppy maker has dumped the files to a temp
directory or it's a Winimage self-extrator or another
method, the user will have to figure that out and go from
there, IF possible, else they need to make the floppy first
in order to make the CD FROM that floppy.



Motherboard bios gets scrambled but boot block still works.
System might boot to floppy to reflash bios but there is NO
other way without pulling EPROM (AFAIK).

Why couldn't it boot from a cd? I don't understand.

Boot block has provisions for floppy boot, not
IDE/ATAPI/USB/etc. It can't boot from anything else because
the bios isn't in working order, hence the whole reason to
reflash.



One of myriad other utilites are in compressed
self-extracting archives will automatically pop up a "make
floppy" dialog with no option to output elsewhere. User can
make a floppy or quit, no 3rd choice.

That will change when support for floppies is eliminated. And it will
be...soon.

But, that is no guarantee that legacy software will be
updated. Some people could instead argue... do away with
optical drives, you have a floppy and HDD. Others will
argue "but I need to read CDs". Yeah, and if you have
floppys or programs that use floppies, you need them too.



After all, the floppy drive is simply a channel...and,
yes... can be set to be the first accessed. Once we have a DEPENDABLE
alternative, the change will take place.

No, it's not just a channel, it's a legacy channel that the
Super I/O uses, while IDE isn't. There's the difference,
more bios code needed for IDE to work, and it's not in a
boot block. The floppy is certainly inferior in speed and
capacity but neither is absolutely necessary in it's
typical role.



Jump drives might be it...with a USB port as the first boot device.

Sure, I like 'em, they're handy, faster and higher capacity
and price isn't bad either, BUT,

1) Not all boards will boot from any, let alone all of 'em.
2) Utilities are over-simplified and you make a floppy or
nothing. "Some day" you might be able to make something
else besides a floppy... for ALL your needs. When that day
comes, we'll have a viable alternative. The day hasn't come
yet.



BTW...as you probably know...jump drives are up to 1 gig now...and
climbing!


Yep... I'm just waiting for cheap UDMA capable CompactFlash
cards though, there are a lot of systems I could convert
over to flash for OS once most of the drawbacks are gone.
Even so, in a full, normally size system I'd still throw a
floppy drive in, because (not anticipating need for one)
(never needing one)

On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 15:56:18 GMT, kony wrote:

I think what yer sayin' is...he needs to make a diagnostic DISK. Why
couldn't it be a diagnostic CD?

Sure, if one both knows how and wants to go to the trouble
of compiling it every time.

Compiling? Again...I don't understand. Or did you mean 'creating'?
You certainly don't compile a floppy.

Often though it's simplified
such that user puts int he original CD and is given choice
"insert floppy", then they make the floppy or they don't.

That's simply a procedure. That procedure could easily be
changed...actually, to the way its done now for a floppy.

Put in a floppy...format it...make it bootable if you want.

Put in a cd...format it...make it bootable if you want.

Whether the floppy maker has dumped the files to a temp
directory or it's a Winimage self-extrator or another
method, the user will have to figure that out and go from
there, IF possible, else they need to make the floppy first
in order to make the CD FROM that floppy.

Again...that's simply the current procedure. We now get whatever we
need from the computer in order to make our own boot floppy. The same
could be done with a CD...or with any OTHER boot drive or device. The
only given is that the device would need the capability to write...so
that a medium could be created. That's really all the floppy does
that a cdrom doesn't do...write.

We'd need a standard where every computer comes with a cdrw...and no
floppy. Personally, I can't see that happening...only because the cd
is too bulky. I think you'll see a trend to making a USB port a boot
port.

Motherboard bios gets scrambled but boot block still works.
System might boot to floppy to reflash bios but there is NO
other way without pulling EPROM (AFAIK).

Why couldn't it boot from a cd? I don't understand.

Boot block has provisions for floppy boot, not
IDE/ATAPI/USB/etc. It can't boot from anything else because
the bios isn't in working order, hence the whole reason to
reflash.

That's simply a minor technicality...that could easily be changed.

That will change when support for floppies is eliminated. And it will
be...soon.

But, that is no guarantee that legacy software will be
updated. Some people could instead argue... do away with
optical drives, you have a floppy and HDD. Others will
argue "but I need to read CDs". Yeah, and if you have
floppys or programs that use floppies, you need them too.

Legacy will simply fall by the wayside...like its always done. What
yer point? I've got a machine sitting here that wants to boot from
the 5 1/4 drive!! lol

And I've got DOS 3.3 indexing programs that no longer work on most
machines. Even things like Win95 have become dinosaurs.

Actually...even today...a corrupt BIOS could be recovered from the
other BIOS on the board.

After all, the floppy drive is simply a channel...and,
yes... can be set to be the first accessed. Once we have a DEPENDABLE
alternative, the change will take place.

No, it's not just a channel, it's a legacy channel that the
Super I/O uses, while IDE isn't.

Again...a mere technicality.

There's the difference,
more bios code needed for IDE to work, and it's not in a
boot block. The floppy is certainly inferior in speed and
capacity but neither is absolutely necessary in it's
typical role.

Most machines boot just fine from a CD. Just think how much more a
boot device could provide if it wasn't limited to 1.4 meg.

Jump drives might be it...with a USB port as the first boot device.

Sure, I like 'em, they're handy, faster and higher capacity
and price isn't bad either, BUT,

1) Not all boards will boot from any, let alone all of 'em.

Do you remember when they finally put a 'swap boot drive' option into
most BIOS? Its just a matter of new programming in the BIOS. After
all, that's how we now get the option to boot from a cd.

2) Utilities are over-simplified and you make a floppy or
nothing. "Some day" you might be able to make something
else besides a floppy... for ALL your needs. When that day
comes, we'll have a viable alternative. The day hasn't come
yet.

Sure it has. Most of us have that option now.

BTW...as you probably know...jump drives are up to 1 gig now...and
climbing!


Yep... I'm just waiting for cheap UDMA capable CompactFlash
cards though, there are a lot of systems I could convert
over to flash for OS once most of the drawbacks are gone.
Even so, in a full, normally size system I'd still throw a
floppy drive in, because (not anticipating need for one)
(never needing one)

Floppies have outlived their usefulness. At the very beginning, their
purpose WASN'T to boot a machine (although it truly WAS...before
machines had hard drives in 'em.) Their main purpose was to carry
data...programs, etc...from one machine to the other...and easily.

The jump drive is taking over that job...and may even make a cd burner
obsolete. Why burn a cd...when you can drag-n-drop to a jump?...a
jump that has more capacity than a cd.

The world she is a changin'! lol

I'm gonna try settin' up a machine this weekend with a jump drive as a
paging file.


Have a nice one...

Trent©

Budweiser: Helping ugly people have sex since 1876!

In message kony
wrote:

Motherboard bios gets scrambled but boot block still works.
System might boot to floppy to reflash bios but there is NO
other way without pulling EPROM (AFAIK).

Why couldn't it boot from a cd? I don't understand.

Boot block has provisions for floppy boot, not
IDE/ATAPI/USB/etc. It can't boot from anything else because
the bios isn't in working order, hence the whole reason to
reflash.

Sure, for existing motherboards. Typically the easiest way is to have a
BIOS which isn't flashable which has the tools to recover the flashable
BIOS. If it can operate a floppy there is no reason why it couldn't be
designed to operate a USB disk as well.


--
I'm sorry sir, you can't park your van on the diving board.

In message Trent©
wrote:

On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 01:43:22 -0700, DevilsPGD
wrote:

In message kony
wrote:

It'd be a whole lot easier if MS would just fix their
software. IMO, there is no excuse for an OS that can start
booting from a drive but then "lose" itself. At the very
least they could've allowed alternate sources for the
driver.

There are a couple things Microsoft could do to the installer that would
solve this problem instantly.

Am I missing something here? What does MSFT have to do with
anything...when the drive hasn't even been partitioned yet...when
first purchased?

When you build a new system, pop in a shiny new WinXP CD, you have the
option to load drive controller drivers before the install partitions
and formats for you.

However, the installer ONLY looks on the primary floppy drive, and it
does so using hardware (not BIOS) calls. In other words, a bootable
CDROM can emulate a write-only floppy from DOS' point of view, but the
NT installer accesses the floppy directly rather then asking the BIOS
for Drive A.

This should change. The installer should check all drives visible to it
at this point (and it should have already loaded all of the internal
drivers)

I know with 100% certainty that the WinXP installer can see USB flash
drives because when you get to the partitioning screen it lists the USB
drives, their sizes and current partition states, and it appears to
offer the ability to install to an external harddrive. I don't have any
flash drives large enough, but if I'm ever bored enough I'll try
installing WinXP to a removable drive and see if I can get it working.


--
I'm sorry sir, you can't park your van on the diving board.