Computer problems

[Frozzy]

I've been putting together a new computer, and I seem to be having a bit of trouble booting from a floppy.

Essentially, when there is no floppy in the disk drive, the BIOS bypasses it fine and it goes through to Mandrake Linux when I get a message saying "Kernel Panic: No init found". I assume that is due to the lack of media on the hard drive.

However, when a bootable floppy is placed in the drive, it gets to "Verifying DMI Pool Data", the floppy drive makes roughly 9 clicks and then stops. If I press a button on my keyboard, it does 9 clicks again, but again stops.

Any ideas?

[The Viceroy]

Install Windows

[Frozzy]

I should add I have tried 2 diskettes (admittedly with exactly the same files on them (ie. 98se boot files)), 2 floppy cables and 2 floppy drives.

[Frozzy]

Originally posted by The Viceroy
Install Windows

A bit hard when the boot files don't load themselves

[The Viceroy]

Have you tried other boot disks ?

[Frozzy]

Only those two 98se boot disks. I shall try another.

[The Viceroy]

I think the ME boot disk was the last Dos based one Microsoft produced .. but you can get all kinds of others.

[Frozzy]

The 98se bootdisk it appears to hang up on, and it seems to ignore the ME boot disk...

[SpencerH]

Are you sure the floppy drive is hooked up properly and is not defective? Plus, I've had problems with disks formatted with older drives not working in newer drives (and vice versa). What about a bootable CD?

[Frozzy]

Bootable CD the computer ignores, and I have been using boot disk programs from the internet to form my boot disks.

As I said, I have tried two floppy drives and neither of those have worked; I am sure the floppy drive is connected properly.

[SpencerH]

When you say 'new computer' would this be something with an older motherboard with an intel chipset?

I ask because I have a couple of old PC's (PII and PIII) that are rather fussy about the win98se boot disk they require. Some of the versions from the net dont work and others do.

On the other hand it may have something to do with Mandrake (where I have no experience).

[Urban Ranger]

What is your boot sequence like?

[Frozzy]

Floppy
CD-ROM
HDD-0

"When you say 'new computer' would this be something with an older motherboard with an intel chipset?"

Brand new Motherboard, VIA chipset.

[Urban Ranger]

Okay. Go into BIOS to see if it can recognise your drives. If not, first thing is to check your cables. If you have some cables known to work lying around, use those. If your old computer is still around, you can use it to check the cables + drives.

It is still possible to connect to a FDD wrong, though IDE cables are all one way these days.

There is also a remote possibility that the mobo is fragged, but that's probably something to be looked at last.