Hello and thank you for taking interest in this problem.
Ive been having fun building a few computers from old stock, and this one has something different Ive never come across before.
The computer is an Intel Pentium,160 mg Ram, with 2 Gig seagate with Win 98SE Clean install on it.
I loaded Win 98SE with a CD and went to create a start up disk and the A: Drive was not found? ( (It has an A: Drive) and its connected))
I went into the Bios and it shows as a 5 1/2 Floppy. I changed the BOOT order and the recognition ability of the computer to accept the A: Drive as 1.44 and 3. 1/2". So now I have A, B C and D Drives

I looked in My Computer and Its listed as A: in there yet when I put a disk in it I cant get the computer to "see it".
Ive changed the cable and some pins on the A: Drive to see if had been set wrong. Ive put a different A: Drive in it. Ive changed all that back now.
So Ive got a new (different) cable and A: Drive in it, and disabled the B: location in the Bios settings.
It shows as an A: Drive but the computer still says it isnt accessable.

When I go into the properties of the A: Drive it shows as Label (Greyed) blank, 0 Bytes, 3. 1/2 Floppy and Fat, File system.
I can see on the mother board there is only the one position for the cable for the A: Drive.
Does anyone have any solutions I might try?
Thank you ImnoGuru In the process you have ruined he floppy drive.
Pay more attention and do not work on the thing w
ith the power on.Well Geek-9pm Thank you for looking.
I appreciate your reply , your wrong of course in your assumption that I caused it and that the drive has been destroyed.
I dont do anything inside the box with the power on.
I can even imagine there would be people out there that will operate on their computers with the power on. I of course am not one of them.

This problem was from the get go. The A: Drive was always only recognized as a 5. 1/2 floppy and Ive been trying to get it recognized as an A: drive, for a 1.44 disk!
There is a facility to adjust the A and B drive in the bios and I did that.

Now, seeing there is only one CONNECTION that I can see on the Mobo for the A: Drive and there was a cable and an A: Drive connected, one would presume that this was indeed the A: Drive. So if the bios is set to recognize the A as 1.44 and disable the B, one would expect that it should work, or have I got it wrong somewhere?
There must be some sort of solution to this.
This is what I see in the Bios and My Computer. Maybe it will help someone to see what (if anything) I'm doing wrong and offer a solution.
Many thanks ImnoGuru.

[attachment deleted by admin]Is floppy seek at start enabled in the BIOS ? ?
2 things you can try:
A) Right click the A: drive in My Computer and select remove/uninstall....it should be automatically detected on re-boot...
B) Remove the CMOS battery for 5 minutes with the PSU unplugged...this will reset the BIOS back to it's default settings...Please forgive geek9pm for his silly assumptions.

You may not be a Guru, but your not that that computer illiterate

I assume you have the power connected as well as the FDD connector?check the cable mite be in the second connector not the power but the data the one with a twist, not sure if that would change it or not but just to try it.Some MACHINES have a floppy swap setting in the BIOS. Make sure thats not set to swap drives.


Mite be a good thing that I had mentioned that was going to SKIP this probably.Thank you everyone for that, these are the responses that will move this build along, and all good calls.
Patio, BC_Programmer, squall_01 and Spoiler, all solid thoughts.

Patio I went with your suggestions first and tried the simple task of removing the battery in the MOBO, left it and replaced it in a timely manner. Testing the result came to a sad end.
Unfortunately I didnt follow instructions to the letter and left the power cable connected. (More Later that)
So to the next idea of removing the drive altogether, and to my mind probably the best opportunity.
The result was as expected with new hardware found, loading drivers , the testing unfortunately failed by displaying the A: Drive as 5. 1/2 was drive not ready or is in-accessable.
Then to BC_Programmer and squall_01's comments. Simple things can often be so easily overlooked and thank you for your guidance.
The power cable is connected yes, the lights flash and the A. Drive visually rotates when going through the POST sequence. I had a disk in the A: Drive and I can hear it engaging and spinning. Squall-01 the cable is dedicated for an A Drive with the twisty thing in it. No joy so far.

Spoiler, I'm not sure where that might be listed "swap", so I looked through the whole BIOS listings. I couldnt find anything that might resembled a "swap floppy" listing.
So back to following instructions , the battery out the power cord out gave a different result but one that proved most agreeable. SUCCESS!!!
Patio thank you for your perseverance with us of less knowledge, and to all who helped, my gratitude to your selflessness of helping others. Bless you all

Thank you ImnoGuru. good to hear you got it solved! And of course we look forward to assisting you with any other difficulties. I am glad your machine is working.....

About the floppy swap thing I was talking about .....


Swap Floppy Drive

Common Options : Enabled, Disabled

Quick Review

This BIOS feature is used to logically swap the mapping of drives A: and B:. Therefore, it is only useful if you have two floppy drives.

Normally, the sequence by which you connect the floppy drives to the cable determines which is drive A: and which is drive B:. If you attach the floppy drives the wrong way and obtain a drive mapping that is not to your satisfaction, the usual way of correcting this is to physically swap the floppy cable connectors.

This feature allows you to swap the logical arrangement of the floppy drives without the need to open up the case and physically swap the connectors.

When this BIOS feature is enabled, the floppy drive that originally was mapped to drive A: will be remapped to drive B: and vice versa for the drive that was originally set as drive B:.

When this BIOS feature is disabled, the floppy drive mapping will remain as that set by the drive connector arrangement.

Although this appears to be nothing more than a feature of convenience, it can be quite important if you are using two floppy drives of different form factors (3.5" and 5.25") and you need to boot from the second drive. Because the BIOS can only boot from drive A:, you will have to physically swap the drive connections or use BIOS this feature to do it logically.

If your floppy drive mapping is correct or if you only have a single floppy drive, there is no need to enable this feature. Leave it at the default setting of disabled.


Just though you would like to know in case this happens again. I have a feeling that clearing the BIOS like you did reset things back to normal and that included disabling the swap.

none of my PCs newer then 2002 seem to have a swap floppy drive option...glad to hear that it is primarly working.