SuperDisk LS-120 and ABit BE6??

[Chris H]

Hello.
I've just upgraded my system and it now includes an ABit BE6 mobo. When I connect my LS-120 drive (secondary slave IDE) it works OK but Win98 calls it 3.5" floppy (G)?? I get a 5.25" floppy as A that doesn't exist (i.e locks the machine up if you click on it).
Drive A and B are set as not installed in the BIOS. I've experimented with the 'report no FDD for win95' option but all this does is toggle between a bogus 3.5" and 5.25" 'A' drives.

Any ideas? I've never had any problems configuring an LS-120 as drive A: on any other system I've built.

[motub]

Hi Chris...

I'm a Super7 user with a LS-120 drive...I've not had problems either, certainly not seen a phantom 5 1/2" drive...usually the LS-120 (internal at least, external's another tale) is sweet as silk.

What I do know is that the SuperFloppy is coming up as G: (as if it were a Zip drive or an external floppy) because Windoze thinks that you have an A: drive and you've told it you don't have a B:.

My first thought is...do you have a cable connected to the floppy controller on the mobo (possibly in error)? and if so, what is it attached to? Assuming you do have it attached to something on purpose, apparently the cable is reversed to the peripheral or connected to the wrong type of drive...that's what's been true when I get a phantom drive that crashes me when I click on it...

You can also try disabling the FDC in the BIOS (Integrated Peripherals menu)..if you don't have a regular floppy drive or a tape drive, might as well free the resources.

Did you check the Device Manager in Safe Mode? If that's where your phantom resides, delete it (and any repeat occurrences). Heck, while you're at it, delete the Standard Floppy Drive Controller. Next time you boot up Windoze, that whole hardware branch will be re-detected. That ought to solve it right there...

But I really feel this is a cabling problem..happens, setting up a new mobo...

Hope this helps.



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Holly
Finally free of that V2, because her Soyo 5EMA, K6-2 333 not o/c, 256MB PC100, Mill. G200 8MB SGRAM, MX300, LS-120, Win98 works plenty good enough...'til she gets the G400/Athlon rig...[drool, drool... ]











[This message has been edited by motub (edited 08-06-99).]

[Chris H]

Thanks Holly.

I haven't got anything plugged into the floppy port on the motherboard.

I'll tinker with the BIOS a little more tonight.

Chris.

[motub]

How weird...then what could Windows possibly be detecting when it boots up?? Isn't the whole procedure that Windows sends a signal out and receives one back from some device?? I can only think that Windows must be misinterpreting some device that is actually connected; I didn't think it could just make one up out of whole cloth...but with Windows, who knows....?

Good luck...please let us (me) know what you find...

--------------
Holly

[Chris H]

Yeah, bizarre isn't it.

Haven't had chance to do anything with it yet (still at work ).

However I will clarify the problem.

System: Abit BE6 Motherboard, Celeron 300A@450MHz, 256MB PC100 RAM, G400 32MB DH, IBM 22GB HDD (Primary Master), Hitachi DVD-ROM (secondary Master), Panasonic LS-120 (Secondary Slave).

If the BIOS is set to NO A: or B: drive, and the boot sequence is set to [LS/ZIP, C] this usually works. But on this system, as I've said, the LS gets moved to G: drive, and a bogus A: drive appears ('5.2.5" Floppy'). If I then turn ON 'Report no FDD for Win95' in the BIOS, I get a 'Removable Disk A:'. and 3.5" Floppy G:. The A: drive is again bogus (lockup if clicked on). The LS functions perfectly on G:.

I'll let you know what happens...

Thanks. Chris.

[Jorden]

Hi Chris,

I don't have an SS7 system, but I can tell you a strange story about my former and my recent mobo's and the LS-120 internal..

On my old Asus board I had to disable the FDC, A: and B: drives in the BIOS and when I wanted to use it in Win95A I had to load the drivers in Autoexec.bat ...

Win95B (OSR/2.1) had the LS-120 drivers built in but I still had to disable the FDC, A: and B: drives in the BIOS.

My Asus P2B board, needs drives A: and B: disabled in the BIOS, but the FDC must be on... If I disable the FDC, it gives me a removable drive like you said, and a 5.25 inch non-existent A: drive. This is with Win98.

What you might want to check is the following:

What is the designation of the LS-120 in the system-properties? Is it A: or is it something else? If it's G: try forcing it back to A: and restart Windows.

If you need to load the drivers in Win95, make sure you load them before anything else in the Autoexec.bat.

Jorden.

[Jorden]

Chris,

Re-check in the BIOS if you disabled the A:drive, B:drive and the possible 3rd drive (Format 3 orso)

[Wombat]

I worked on a friend's system once w/ an internal Iomega ZIP drive. It was showing up as B:. I had to enable B: in the BIOS, and tell the BIOS to skip drive errors. Win98 ignored the B: drive, and correctly set the Zip to F:.

Good luck,
Wombat

[Wombat]

ack, double post.

[This message has been edited by Wombat (edited 08-07-99).]

[motub]

Hey Chris,
This gets weirder and weirder...What's showing up in the Device Manager in Safe Mode?

If worst comes to worst, you could delete the hardware tree in the registry (I believe it's HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Enum), and reinstall Win98, forcing Win98 to redetect all your hardware without affecting your software...

------------------------
Holly

[Jorden]

You might want to swap A: to B: if you have that ability in your BIOS....

[Chris H]

Just tried a few things;

Disabled FDD controller in BIOS - Still get Removable Disk (A)

Tried to re-assign drive letter in device manager, it will only let be pick G onwards.

Any more ideas?

[Chris H]

Tried changing A, and B floppy settings, disabling FDC, changing boot sequence, etc etc. Nothing seems to work.

I'll try safe mode next.

Thanks for the tips, I'll let you know what happens.

Chris

[arbymo]

Hi Chris H : if you try motub trick and delete the Enum key .. u might not need to reinstall windoze .. just reboot and goto add new hardware and let it detect all your hardawre .. i don't have an LS-120 myself .. but i had another problem and i did that.

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GigaByte 6BXE, celeron 300A@464, 128 PC100 RAM,
G200 8 M SD @112.5 core. driver 4.51, bios 2.3.

[Throb]

I have the same problem, the only different is my motherboard is a BH6. My friend suggested a fix:

1. Connect the LS-120 to Secondary Slave.
2. In Bios, make the secondary slave auto detect.
3. Set floppy A and B to none.
4. Leave floppy disk controller enabled.
5. Set Tell Win95 no floppy present to No.

According to him, step 2 is important. The trouble I have is while playing around with my LS120 drive, I broke one of the pins so I can't try and see if it works until it is fixed. Could you post if it works.