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EPOX ep-8k7a floppy/cd rom error???

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tornado

New Member
Joined
Aug 14, 2001
I need help from the experts out there please.

I recently bought the Epox ep-8k7a Motherboard and got everything installed successfully. The board goes through it's system checks and recognizes everything ok like it should and finishes showing a status of FF on the board passing control over the floppy drive to install Win 98 SE via the bootable disk however every time it comes back saying System Disk Error or Non bootable disk. Sometime the floppy light will come on and turn off and nothing will happen. Sometimes the floppy drive will come on and stay on constantly. Sometimes the floppy drive will come on and then a couple of weird characters will come up on the screen. Basically I can not get the OS installed. I have tried 3 different bootable disks, 3 different floppy drives and tried to install from a bootable disk in the CD rom drive with the same results. I have quadruple checked all the connections, switched out the IDE cables to be safe and still no luck. Any suggestions as to what I can try next? Any other information you need from me before you can answer my questions? I am far from computer literate some please give me your answer on a kindergarden level. Thank You.
 
Go into the bios setup->hit delete key right after you start the pc.
Then i n the standard CMOS setup menu look for drive A. and set it to 3.5in 1.44mb and drive B to none.
Then go to the advanced bios features menu and look for swap floppy drive and set that to disabled.
Then save and exit.
Now if after it restarts and your floppy drive still wont work right then turn off the pc and reverse both ends of the floppy drive cable. If your cable has a notch that prevents this maybe you have one without the notches you can use.
 
Thanks Placid,

I have tried the setting drive A to floppy and drive B to none and also have made sure that the swap floppy drive is set to disabled.
However I will try reversing both ends of the floppy drive cable and see if that works. Thanks again.
 
I had same problem with mine. Not sure what the cause is but it seems it only likes a certain end of a floppy cable.

Reversing the ends on mine worked as well.
 
Hey All,

Well tried switching the cable ends around with no luck. Even went out and bought a new cable and tried that.
Still no luck. Only think I can think of is the IDE controllers on the board our bad. Going to return and get a replacement I guess.
 
quick question, have you enabled booting to a floppy and cdrom in the bios, and the boot to other device setting???

ps cool mobo
 
put your 100/133 jumper on the board to 100 and use the incremental multiplier in the bios better i had the same problem with mine i set the jumper on the board to 100 and then it booted fine and gradually stepped up the FSB to where i am now and when you install your OS make sure you leave your fsb at a lower setting that way you will get a more reliable install of your OS.
 
I had the same problem with mine also.I tok the cable loose and put it back on the same way and it worked.It happened again though also have problems recognizing cdroms sometimes. If alot of people are having the same problem I dont think it's the chip there's got to be something similar we all did or a compatability issue.
 
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