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General discussion

clicking of floppy drive, and can't install 98SE

Feb 23, 2004 1:31PM PST

I have a old Gateway, given to me, 433Mhz 66buss speed, the floppy drive just started clicking one day, and windows wouldn't load, sometimes after 4 or 5 reboods, well I formated the hard drive, cleaned out the computer of all dirt and dust, replaced hard drive, all the ribbon cables, new bios filmware, and it still clicking, and I can't install 98SE, anybody got any ideas, also anybody know where i can get the bios settings, none in the book, tried default still won't install I took the serial number to gateway, I have all the info. on what's installed, but no bios settings, you think I have a bad floppy drive or a cd/rom. 3 Tec. can't find the problen, and it's not worth paying gateway to fix it.. HELP

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Re:clicking of floppy drive, and can't install 98SE
Feb 23, 2004 4:15PM PST

This looks like some hardware problem (but "can't install 98SE' is utterly vague), so let's start simple.

1. Take your Windows 98 boot diskette (or download a program to make one from www.bootdisk.com).
2. Set the BIOS to boot from A: first and boot from the boot diskette. Choose cd-support if asked for. Note any error message and note the drive-letter assigned to the cd-drive (could be e: or r:, or anything, depending on the bootdisk used).
3. Put a cd in the drive. Note any error message.
4. Run DOS-diagnostics for A: (dir a:, chkdsk a: ).
5. Run DOS-diagnostics for 'new' hard drive. Should be partitioned and formatted, of course, so do that before if necessary.
6. Do a dir on the cd (no other DOS-diagnostics).
7. If Gateway has them: run other hardware diagnostics from diskette.
8. Reboot from the boot-diskette and choose to install Windows 98 from the CD.

Tell the forum all the results, with as much detail and exactness as appropriate.

Kees

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Re:clicking of floppy drive, and can't install 98SE
Feb 25, 2004 11:14AM PST

Try this is your floppy light staying on if it is you have the cable installed backwards, just revers one of the cables ends. If your light isn't on then check to see if it detecting in the bios setup go to bios feature setup and look for boot sequence. the first boot device is the floopy the second is hard drive the third is cdrom. look also on the ide and periphal and look for to see if the flopyy is enable. and save your changes. If this don't fix it you got a bady floppy or a dirty one. replace the floppy drive and cable they are cheap around $20.00 or less for the floppy and about $5.00 for the cable. Try that if it still clinking you might have a bad floppy controler.