Floppy Drive

I have been having this problem for a while, I get an error when I reboot my computer it says 2BO: Diskette A error and I have to hit F2 to start my windows. I have tried taking out the battery to reset BIOS didn't work, tried every suggestion givin but nothing worked. I finally got aggravated today reformatted my hard drive and started from scratch but when windows rebooted it done the same thing. I read the whole screen to see what all it did say about the floppy drive all it says is that it's shadowed and the 2BO: error. I dont know what else to try any more suggestions I will try anything at this point, Thank you in advance.

hi kharley, in the BIOS you might find the option to disable the floppy from being detected at boot up. this should stop the error message, but wont fix any problem the floppy might be having.

I really dont want to disable it if I dont have to because I do still use it somethimes, but if I do disable it is it going to cause other problems or will it stop booting all together, Thank you.

if disabled in the BIOS, it means that it wont be detected during the bootup process. It may or may not still function as a floppy in windows depending on what exactly the problem is. if it dosnt work just go back in the BIOS and change the setting back.

Well right now it dont work at all when I tried to save a letter to the floppy it kept telling me to in sert a floppy disk so I dont know what else to try. I guess if I want it to boot without having to use the F2 key I dont really have much choice, Thank you.

hi kharley, look in device manager under floppy disk drives and floppy disk controllers, click the + sign next to each. do you see a yellow looking exclamation mark. also right click on each and select properties making sure the device is working ok and enabled. —————– for the error message: i think you are having to hit f2 to continue because the bootup process is being halted by the floppy drive, by disabling the floppy 'seek" in the BIOS the floppy wont be detected at bootup. should boot right into windows. this wont disable the drive only prevent it being detected at bootup. of course this wont fix any problem the drive might be having either. looks like you have tried afew things, maybe your drive has gone bad. floppy drives are very inexpensive and will be obsolete soon. one suggestion is to use a USB flash drive for storage of documents. they are also inexpensive, mobile, smaller and hold much more data than a 1.44MB floppy. you can get them from a small 128MB (thats about 80 floppies) up to gigabytes in space. shelf life

Ok I went and bought a new floppy and a new ribbon but the only thing that done was put it back to the other problem I was having that I thought was fixed. The floppy still makes me hit the F2 and now it's back to telling me no operating system found so I have to shut it down a little while and hope it loads the windows, any suggestions HELP please. I would also like to know how my boot order is supposed be after installing the new floppy it still made me hit F2 so I shut it down and removed the battery for about 15 minutes hoping to reset the BIOS but still the same, Thank you.

hi kharley,

new floppy drive, same problem. usually the default boot up is:
floppy, HD, Cd drive, network. you can change the boot order, no need to remove the battery every time.

now it's back to telling me no operating system found

This could be a warning of coming hd failure. to be safe you should backup anything you dont want to loose.
Is the Hd info displayed in the BIOS. check the ribbons and cables to make sure they are secure

I checked and yes the HD is showing in the BIOS, I also looked at the boot order and it showed CD Rom, Hard Drive, Network Boot. Is this the way it's supposed to be, the HD info was setup on Primary Master, Maxtor 6Y080P0- (PM) ] I dont know what all of this means so you will have to tell me if it's right or if I need to change something. I am an idiot when it comes to computers but I have to admit I have learned a lot in the last few months but none of it has helped so far. At the risk of sounding more like an idiot is the any kind of software I could run to let me know if there are problems with my HD, Thank you.

hi kharley,

yes, that boot order is ok.
your HD should be set up as the primary master
the only hd tools i have used are ones provided by the hd manufacturers. they can be downloaded for free from the websites.
in windows you should at least run windows chkdsk
This will attempt to find and repair bad sectors on your hard drive. Click Start>Click My Computer>Right click on your hard drive (C:) then select properties>then the Tools Tab. under Error Checking–click "check now" Check both options in the dialog box click start.



hard drive signs:
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?art…1583&page=4

OK I ran chkdsk and it said the volume was clean so that means it's ok right, I am going nuts here trying to figure this out, Thank you.

Hi, I have been following this thread trying to wrack my brains over what is the solution here. Unfortunately I have no "magic bullet" for this but often we get machimes coming into the workshop for repair where there is a floppy drive problem, and in a number of cases it's because the ribbon cable from the floppy drive to the motherboard has been fitted incorrectly. I'm not suggesting that's the case here, but nevertheless it might be wise to check that pin 1 of the ribbon cable is orientated correctly. Pin 1 (usually with a coloured red line or trace) is generally connected so that it's proximate to the power (Molex) connector. On some Motherboards it's possible to fit this incorrectly…..but then generally the "Floppy Drive in Use " LED is usually illuminated constantly. Regards paws

I checked the floppy connection but it will only hook up one way I dont see how it could be hooked up wrong. I have run some test to see if maybe it was a problem with my hard drive but all test came back fine. I ran chkdsk, I ran Active smart, I ran nortons hard drive is fine. I went in to the device manager it say's the floppy and the floppy controller is operating fine but nortons say's the floppy is not working. I was wondering what is a floppy controller and how do I replace it. I ran a test to check the Winsock what ever that is to check my ftp port but it came up with unknown error. The nortons said it could be the floppy controller or the mother board could this also cause the problems with the ftp port, Thank you.

hi kharley,

what is a floppy controller and how do I replace it

pretty sure that the controller is built into the motherboard. windows FTP or file transfer protocol is a service that will allow FTP clients to connect to your computer. its not installed by default. most home users do not need it. it has nothing to do with the floppy problem.

see if this link about floppies can shed any light:
http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/comp/fdd/fail_Drive.htm

shelf life

OK I started out having trouble with an error when I rebooted my computer saying no operating system found it even rebooted on it's own sometimes giving the same error. The it dont do that as much but started another error, when I reboot now in order to boot into windows I have to hit the F2 key. I have a software program I have been trying to use for weeks but I get an error message that I need to be connected to the internet and I am on DSL so i'm always connected. I thought the floppy drive was the problem so I replaced it and the ribbon but that wasn't the trouble, I am starting to wonder if the problems are with my harddrive. I went in to check the free space to see why I couldn't defrag but it say's I only have 2% free. I let someone work on my computer once and I am starting to wonder if they switched my harddrive. I had an 80 HD in here when I bought it but the capacity is showing 31.4 I dont know a lot about this stuff but I dont think thats a 80 HD. I uninstalled just about everything I had installed on here but I still cant defrag, PLEASE tell me that all of these problems stem from my hard drive going out. I checked my HD info it dont give the manufacturer name anymore, and I dont know if this means anything but the location of the HD is 0 (0) , Thank you.