Floppy Drives

Saturday, May 17th, 2003

This week let us discuss the primary drive for most computers, the floppy drive. Today this is possibly the most under rated drive on your system and few people actually use one, until the need arises. Often this drive is the key to enter the system when all else fails, using a boot disk. So, I recommend you keep the floppy drive clean and working.

Floppy drives tend to wear out after only a few years, most especially if the computer is not in a sterile environment. Dust accumulates in the drive, heads wear down and the systems occasional seeking of a disk will limit the life. Replacing this drive is today a cheap cure for most things that go wrong, considering they cost under $20 wholesale. Brand names do count with floppy drives just like other components and I have found Teac to make the best drives available.

Replacing a floppy drive is only a matter of removing the case cover, removing the screws holding it, popping the ribbon and power cable loose, then placing the new one in it’s place. Remember to replace the ribbon cable in the same direction as you found it, though if the drive is a different brand you may need to reverse it. This is on a trial and error basis.

The CMOS settings for the drive should not need to be changed, since nearly all floppy drives installed for the last four or five years are 1.44mg/3.5″ drives. Only if you are upgrading to a different format, such 2.88mg or a Superdisk, 100mg drive will you need to worry about changing your CMOS settings.

Okay, you have installed your new floppy drive or for what ever reason you have removed the ribbon cable on an existing drive, then reconnected it. Now, when the system goes through the POST phase, the initial startup, you receive an error message, “NO FLOPPY DRIVE.” The first thing to consider is the cable is not connected tightly. Checking this, you find the error continues, then you have the cable installed backward or not cleanly on all the drive’s pins. First check to see if the all pins are in the floppy drive connector. Then, we remove the ribbon cable from the floppy drive and turn it over so the red stripe on the cable is on the other side.

Typically, unless the drive is bad to begin with, this is the solution to this problem.

One final thing to mention, that is repairing floppy drives. I have heard this one, from time to time. Why can’t we just repair it? The truth here is that new drives are so cheap and have been for so long, no one even considers it any more. They are a disposable item. When it wears out, you replace it or even when it starts to just not read disks clearly. It is too important to have a good working floppy drive in your computer to waste time with a malfunctioning drive.

Tech Tip of the Week

A very inexpensive item is the the Floppy Drive cleaner disk, usually under $2.00. You can buy these in computer stores, parts stores, stationary stores and more. I recommend if you are using your floppy drive to any extent, use a cleaner disk regularly. The annoyance of making a quick floppy disk to transport data and then discover it cannot be read when you arrive does not need to exist. Just a little regular maintenance will save you a great deal of frustration. Remember the brand name of the cleaner is not important, since they are all fairly much the same. Have fun Bob

Hard Drives

Tuesday, May 20th, 2003

On days like this one, here in Idaho, when the temperatures are in the low eighties and gentle breezes blow across the valley, it is difficult to turn my attention to computers.  I think I would rather be out with my sons and a fishing rod, hooking trout out of a local stream.  Sitting here in my office with the breeze rustling into the room, let us look at another issue commonly encountered by PC users. 

NO ROM BASIC… SYSTEM HALTED
I cannot tell you how many times I have seen this appear instead of the usual Starting MS Dos…  or   Starting MS Win95…    so what causes this problem and how do we solve it? 

In years gone by, before the advent of Windows98, Windows95, Windows period, all the way back to the original IBM Personal Computers, the precursors to today’s PCs, at one time called “clones,” IBM had a Basic Interpreter that resided in the BIOS or ROM.  If the system upon boot could not find a floppy disk or hard drive to boot, it would load this Rom Basic Interpreter.
 

Today, we do not see this message from the current version of BIOS installed on the motherboard.  You will see a message such as:

• SYSTEM DISK NOT FOUND
• INSERT DISK and HIT ANY KEY 

These are all symptoms of the same issue, the computer cannot something to use to boot the computer, or the next step after it has finished the POST process.

Solutions

Early computers would give you the NO ROM BASIC message if you had a drive configuration problem, such as no hard drive or floppy drive(s) were installed.  It was rather primitive by today’s standards.  The first thing you need to consider was your floppy drive or hard drive was not connected into the system properly.  That issues resolved, then you did not have a bootable partition on either the floppy disk or your hard drive.  These issues still exist with today’s computers.

For our discussion here, we will assume your hardware is installed correctly, ribbon data cables properly installed, power cable installed and the CMOS has been configured to recognize the drives. 

Floppy Disks
If your BIOS has been properly configured to boot from a floppy:     Boot sequence =  A-C

Then the issue is your floppy disk.  

• The disk maybe bad, areas of the floppy disk cannot be read by your drive – Time to make a new boot floppy disk and toss out the old one.
• The floppy does not have a bootable partition installed, most properly termed as:  a Boot Disk

Hard Drives

• The hard drive does not have a partition, partition your hard drive
• The partition on the hard drive is not set “ACTIVE.”  Use fdisk to set the C drive’s partition to active
• The hard drive has not been properly formatted.  Use the Boot disk to format the drive with this command:   format c: /s (the /s switch transfers the system files to the hard drive, making it bootable
• The hard drive does not contain any system files or boot files.  Use your boot floppy to add the files to the hard drive using this command:  sys c:   this transfers the boot files or system files to the hard drive.

How to partition a hard drive (Win95/98)

• Insert your Windows95/98 Startup Disk (or DOS 6 boot disk) in the A: Drive. Turn on the computer with the floppy disk drive in the A: drive.
• When the computer has finished booting you should be at the A: Prompt. (If your computer still boots to the C: drive or continues to load into Windows then you make sure the boot sequence of the computers BIOS is set to boot from the floppy drive first.)
• From the A: prompt type FDISK [Enter]
• If you have a hard drive larger than 512MB then FDISK displays the following message: (assuming that you booted using the Windows95/98 Startup Disk)
• Your computer has a disk larger than 512 MB. This version of Windows includes improved support for large disks, resulting in more efficient use of disk space on large drives, and allowing disks over 2 GB to be formatted as a single drive.

IMPORTANT: If you enable large disk support and create any new drives on this disk, you will not be able to access the new drive(s) using other operating systems, including some versions of Windows 95 and Windows NT, as well as earlier versions of Windows and MS-DOS. In addition, disk utilities that were not designed explicitly for the FAT32 file system will not be able to work with this disk. If  you need to access this disk with other operating systems or older disk utilities, do not enable large drive support.

Do you wish to enable large disk support (Y/N)….?   [Y]

Answering Yes [Y] Allows you to to setup the hard drive using one single partiton utilizing the full size of the hard drive without having to split the drive into 2 or 3 partitions. Answering No [N] The largest partition that you can create is 2 GB.

Windows95/98 FDISK then displays:

• Microsoft Windows 98 Fixed Disk Setup Program (C)Copyright Microsoft Corp. 1983 - 1998
• FDISK Options
• Current fixed disk drive: 1
• Choose one of the following:

1. Create DOS partition or Logical DOS Drive
2. Set active partition
3. Delete partition or Logical DOS Drive
4. Display partition information
5. Change current fixed disk drive

Enter choice: [1]

 

If you started the computer using MSDOS V6 then FDISK displays: MS-DOS Version 6.00 Fixed Disk Setup Program (C) Copyright Microsoft Corp. 1993

 

FDISK Options:   Current fixed disk drive: 1  

Choose one of the following:  

1. Create DOS partitions or Logical DOS Drive
2. Set active partition
3. Delete partition or Logical DOS Drive
4. Display partition information

Enter Choice: [1] Press ESC to exit FDISK

 

If your installing the hard drive for the first time or there is no exsisting partition on the hard drive then you must create the Primary partition. (This is the partition that the computer will boot to) Choose 1, and the following screen will come up:

Windows95/98 FDISK displays:

Create DOS Partition or Logical DOS Drive
Current fixed disk drive: 1

  Choose one of the following:  

1. Create Primary DOS Partition
2. Create Extended DOS Partition
3. Create Logical DOS Drive(s) in the Extended DOS Partition

  Enter choice: [1]  

 

MSDOS 6 FDISK displays:

Create DOS Partition
Current Fixed Drive: 1

1. Create Primary DOS partition
2. Create Extended DOS partition
3. Create logical DOS drive(s) in the Extended DOS partition

 

Enter choice: [1]
Press ESC to return to FDISK Options

 

The default choice is [1] press [ENTER]

FDISK will ask:

Do you if you want to partition the full size of the drive? [Y} Press [ENTER]

 

When the partition is created press [ESCAPE] and exit FDISK.

Now you must format the hard drive. From the A: prompt type: format C: /S [ENTER] ( A:\>format C: /s )

Format should display: WARNING, ALL DATA ON NON-REMOVABLE DISK DRIVE C: WILL BE LOST!

Proceed with Format (Y/N)? Type [Y} {ENTER}

Your screen should display the following: Formatting 769.75M (If you have a 750Mb drive, Your actual drive size will differ) 1 percent completed.

  Format complete. System transferred

Volume label (11 characters, ENTER for none)? Press[ENTER]

  806,912,000 bytes total disk space 344,064 bytes used by system 806,567,936 bytes available on disk 16,384 bytes in each allocation unit. 49,229 allocation units available on disk. Volume Serial Number is 156D-1CF5

  Partitioning and formatting the hard drive is completed.

Special Acknowledgements to contributors to this article:
Bill Cohane and Don Gray

Tech Tip of the Week

You have decided to add another hard drive, CD rom drive, or any other device requiring a power souce, only to find you have no more power connectors.  Now what do you do? You add a simple power splitter to an existing power cable. This is a common item you can find at any computer supply store or on the Internet.  Typically, this small item will cost under a dollar (US) and creates no issues for your system.  Have fun Bob Wright

DEAD PC

Saturday, January 18th, 2003

We plunged right in with our first edition, taking on the most mysterious problem with a computer, what to do when it is dead. Most people will pack up the computer and head for the local repair shop. That is a great idea for most people, though for the more adventuresome, interested in solving their own problems, you discovered you can do it yourself. Rather rewarding in many ways. Please understand, the local computer tech is a good resource and there will be times or problems only s/he can solve, because s/he has the tools and a greater degree of knowledge than I can impart to you in newsletters. But, knowledge is power, so let us empower you.

Where do we go from here? We should examine the next issue that may crop up or be adjunct to the original problem. The computer seems dead, but you have opened it up, noticed that all the fans are running, the hard drive is spinning up, the floppy drive is working and it seems the system should be working. Yet, you have no picture on the monitor, the computer is blind. Now what do you do?

We first use a bit of deductive reasoning, remembering that this is the basic skill required of any computer diagnostician. We have no video on our monitor, yet the computer runs. We know that there exists only two components creating your video display: the monitor and the video card.

The Monitor
This may sound simplistic, but is it plugged into the wall socket and is the power switch on? Nearly all monitors will have a small LED light on the front of the monitor to verify the monitor is receiving power and is turned on. If the light is dead, even after you have verified that power is connected by a wall socket and you have tried the switch, time to either replace the monitor or have it repaired.

I want to mention that it is not always wise today to repair monitors, especially the 15” or smaller monitor. Often the repair bill can exceed the cost of a new one. The 17” monitor or larger are still expensive enough to justify repairing them. Nearly all new, quality monitors will come with a 3 year warranty and that is an added plus to replacing the blown monitor.

Now, you have power to the monitor and the LED light on the front is lit, so we know you have turned it on. Did you smell a odd odor, see a puff of smoke from it or a browned area around the monitor’s vents? Is it making clicking sounds? Odds are real good the monitor has died. But, so far you have not discovered any of these obvious signs of the death of a monitor. The next step is to consider the cabling to the monitor and a point I need to make.

The first and most important rule when working with a computer is: DO NO HARM! Did you do something to the computer just before your problem started? Always consider this first. The single biggest factor in computer problems is the user. Did you move it, did you unplug the monitor or did you just move the wires around between the monitor and the computer? This maybe your answer.

If you had unplugged the monitor cable and then reattached it to the computer, consider the monitors cable plug. The plug has numerous small pins that seat into the back of the video card protruding from the computer. These pins can easily be bent over when reattaching it. I have done this on more than one occasion. Unscrew the monitor’s display cable from the computer and examine the pins. If anyone of them is bent over or broken off, you have found the problem. If the pins are broken off, time for a new cable.

If you decide to replace the monitor cable by opening the monitor, be extremely careful. Monitors retain a great deal of power and you maybe in for quite an experience should you touch the wrong thing inside.

But, let us examine the issue of a bent pin. Here a pair of needle-nosed pliers can be an excellent tool. Simply and carefully straighten the pin, then reattach the cable to the computer. These pins are usually copper and easy to straighten, that is if you are careful not to break the pin off. Also, I should mention that a bent pin more often than not will cause colors to disappear from the display, the monitor will suddenly be all red, yellow or blue. But, that is about all I will recommend when the problem is the monitor.

The Video Card
Before we go too much farther, we shall assume you have checked the connection of the monitor to the back of the video card, as we discussed above. The next consideration is your card may not be seated squarely into the motherboard. Inside the computer, once you have removed the case cover, find the video card. Today, most video cards are described by the slot they use on the motherboard: AGP, PCI or ISA.

First, remove the card and clean the contacts along the bottom of the video card. You can use a dry towel with a small amount of rubbing alcohol or just rub the eraser from a pencil along the video cards contacts. Then, reinstall the card. If the problem still persists, it maybe the slot the card is using.

Attempt to move the card to an adjacent slot of the same type. Though it is rare, on occasion a motherboard slot will go bad. Of course, you understand that if it is the AGP slot, the motherboard will only have one and this will not be an option.

We have tried all the options for a stand alone system. If you have not found the problem, we now turn to verifying that the monitor and the video card are indeed both functioning. How do we do this? The easiest method is to try the monitor on another computer and then your video card. If in fact both the video card and the monitor will function on another system, then you have probably found the problem: the motherboard is bad and needs to be replaced.

Tech Tip of the Week

When you decide to work inside a computer, many of the cases in use today are manufactured in the far east, notably China. These cases are often built rather quickly and with little care to quality. If you place your hands inside, be very careful of the metal edges. Often these edges are not milled and incredibly sharp. It is wise to always watch closely when sliding your hand or finger along one of these edges or you may loose some skin or even find yourself visiting a doctor for a few stitches. Be careful and have fun… Bob Wright

Bob's Troubleshooting Basics Begins

Tuesday, January 21st, 2003

Since I first became involved with PCBUILD, so many years ago, I have considered a FAQ or series of articles to help the novice computer user understand and trouble shoot problems. It seems time for me to get to it. It will be in the form of a weekly newsletter posted here to our web site. 

Now, with that said, this Newsletter is not intended for someone with an A+ Tech Certification or other advanced training in computer repair. I intend to start at the beginning, so it maybe a bit redundant for those with advanced skills.

It is time for my basic words of advice. If you have a newer computer, still covered under warranty, I want you to think long and hard before you take the cover off of the case. Often this will violate any existing warranty and you could be without the warranty if you are required to replace some of the parts. 

The next point you need to consider is where you are going to work on your computer and static electricity. ALWAYS unplug the power cord from the case before you remove the cover. This does not insure that all dangers of electricity has been removed, it only insures that no power is running through the components. When you touch any components inside the case, a charge of electricity can move from you and course through the system. The best way to insure against this problem is to wear an anti-static wrist strap. That does not mean I always have one handy, so another approach is to touch the internal frame of the case to discharge any static electricity before actually touching any components. Remember that although the carpeted floor of your family room may seem a good ideal place for working on a computer, carpeting will create static electricity. I advise placing the computer case on a table, desk or workbench to avoid any such problems.

The last thing I will mention on the subject of static electricity is touching electronic circuitry on the motherboard, video cards, modems, sound cards, hard drives and so forth. It only takes a small effort to grasp components by the insulated areas, non-circuitry portions, and it will insure that you do not send a bolt of static electricity coursing through it. Remember even a small charge of static electricity blasting through most of today’s components is like a lighting bolt striking your house. It will damage the component and should be avoided at all costs. 

I also want to mention handling of drives, hard drives in particular. Never drop a hard drive, even a few inches on to a surface. The armature and heads inside the hard drive rest but only micro-fractions off of the drive’s spinning platter. Even when the drive is at rest, dropping a hard drive onto any surface can cause the heads to dig into the platter, pitting it. Like wise, floppy drives, CD Rom drives, DVD drives, even zip and Jazz drives should be handled with extreme care. When handling them, gently place them down on a surface. 

If you are still with me, then lets begin with the basics. The PC computer most people use today consists of only a few components and in actuality it requires only five components to post, the term for starting up and displaying information on the monitor. These components are:

• case with a power supply
• motherboard
• CPU
• Ram memory module(s)
• Video card

Remember these, as this is the basic configuration of all PCs. The computer will not boot or actually process data in this configuration, but it will start and display the pertinent information about the system. If later on you have a computer that will not start or post, remember you can strip the system down to these bare minimums in order for it to post. If it still will not post, then you have a severe problem and you may need to take the computer to a reliable technician.

You will need a drive of some sort in order for a computer to boot, or load the operating system. This drive can be a floppy disk drive, a hard drive or a CD Rom drive. But we will discuss this later. 

Computer will not post (start)

We are going to deal with this issue first. It is the toughest issue for a diagnostician. The easiest way to solve this issue is with a diagnostics card like those available from Ultra-X. You simply insert the card in a computer slot, (either a PCI slot or an ISA slot), turn on the power and the card will give you a read out of codes displaying the problem. These cards cost many hundreds of dollars and a tool for a computer professional, so we will assume you are not going to buy one. *wink*

You should first remove all the cards, (sound card, network card, modem and so forth), from the motherboard. After each of these steps always try to turn on the computer. If it comes on, you have found your problem. Remember that solving most problems with a computer requires good common sense and a little deductive reasoning. Now remove the ribbon cables from the motherboard, cables running to drives, ports or other devices. This does not include the power connection wires or case LED light wires. 

The first thing to check is that you have power running to the computer, is the wall outlet dead? The next thing to look for is the fan in the power supply coming on when you turn on the computer? If you are using an AT form factor power supply, the fan should at least come on. An ATX will probably not even turn on the fan if there is an issue. Now check to see if the power converter switch in the back of the case, from the power supply is set to your local power type supplied. In the USA, Canada and many other areas, that is 110volts. In Europe and a few countries elsewhere it is 220volts.

The power cables running to the motherboard from the power supply should be checked to see if they are properly seated. If it is an AT form factor, be sure that the two connectors have the black wires next to each other. Reversing these will cause a problem. In the case of the AT form factor power supply, disconnect the power wires from the motherboard and try turning on the power. The power supply fan should come on, if not, you may have a bad power switch. In the case of a ATX form factor, confirm that the power wire is connected properly to the motherboard to the proper pins, you will need your motherboard manual to verify the pins this wire connects with from the switch on the front of the case. Finally, check that the switch on the ATX power supply, on the back of the case, is in the ‘on’ position. 

Now, check the Ram memory modules. Remove them and reseat them. They might have become loosened from the motherboard. You should also check that the video card is well seated into the slot on the motherboard. You can remove the card and reinstall it. If you have not found the problem, then we move on to the more difficult measures.

We should now remove the CMOS settings, one or more of them may be wrong and causing the issue. There are two ways to deal with this. The simplest is to find the jumper pins on the motherboard that discharge the power to the BIOS. You should have your motherboard manual on hand to find them. If you do not have the manual, typically you can download one from the motherboard manufacturer’s web site. The computer’s power cable must be unplugged and then you move the jumper to the discharge position. This only takes about ten seconds, then you can move the jumper back. The second method is to remove the battery from the motherboard. This is straight forward, find the battery on the motherboard, carefully remove it, wait a couple of minutes and then replace it. 

The next item to check is the CPU. First, if your motherboard has jumpers to set the clock multiplier and FSB, check these settings in your manual against the jumpers on the motherboard. Now, carefully remove the CPU and examine if for browned areas or obvious signs of heat damage, then return it to the socket.

Okay. We have checked all the easiest of items. The next step will require some more creative diagnostics. At this point, we must confirm that the memory, CPU and video card are working. To do this, you will need another computer.You need to switch out each of these items to the other computer to confirm that it works. Try the video card and ram memory first. When you switch out the CPU, you will need to adjust the jumpers on the second computer’s motherboard to match the settings required for your CPU. If as a matter of course, the second computer will not boot with one of your components, you probably have found your problem part. Try using the good part from the second computer in the first computer to see if it will run with this component. 

Finally, if you have followed all the above measures, you have verified the CPU, the video card and ram will work in another computer, you can safely believe that the motherboard is the problem. You will need to remove the motherboard and replace it. 

We plunged right in and solved possibly the most difficult diagnostic issue you may ever confront. We will address other issues in upcoming editions of this Newsletter. If you found some of the terminology difficult to understand, please let me know by Email. I want everyone to stay with us as we explore other issues in upcoming editions of this Newsletter.

Have fun

Bob Wright