Hard disk fail (80) & Floppy disk fail (40)

[The Stocker]

Rebuiding this system, working motherboard (ATC-1425B) with AMD 486dx4120,
Fujitsu M2684TAU 528meg, Panasonic Floppy Drive.
All component are known to works on different system.
When booting up, after memory test and one short "beep", green light on floppy for half a second, 5 to 10 second wait and message "Hard Disk Fail (80)" and "Floppy Disk Fail (40)" appears, then choice of hit "DELETE" to open cmos/bios, or hit "F1" to continue. When F1 is hit message "Hard Disk Fail - Insert System Boot Disk Press Enter".
Win 98 boot disk inserted in floppy drive but dosen't read.
Cold boot with system disk, still doesn't read.
Try all data cable every possible way foe each drive, no change.
Hard disk does power up as you can hear it.
I'm a beginner, first system I work on, I can try almost anything as I'm not afraid to lose this system.
HELP PLEASE!!!!!!!!1

[cobra]

sems like you have your cables backwards.
look at them carefully, you need to match pin1 (should have a red stripe) on both the motherboard and hard drive/floppy.
Good luck

[The Stocker]

Thank you COBRA, But as I wrote before (Try all data cable every possible way for each drive, no change) I've done that, and no change.

For more info, this mobo has "onboard" hard disk and floppy disk connection.
CD ROM drive is connected to a native sound card, I tried a music cd and it works. I've tried the music cd when the ""Hard Disk Fail - Insert System Boot Disk Press Enter" message is showing.
Any help is appreciated!!!!!!!!

[Cricket]

Hi The Stocker,

Since it's a 486 motherboard, maybe the CMOS battery is dead and the BIOS is losing all the settings. Is the battery the replaceable type (coin type) or the kind that is soldered to the motherboard?

Have you tried replacing the cables?

Does that hard drive have a operating system on it? Do you have a boot disk available?

Cricket

[The Stocker]

Thank you Cricket, The batteries is in good condition, I've set up the hard disk
setting manually in the CMOS/BIOS and save it, left the computer overnite and it was still in the CMOS/BIOS the next morning. Changing the data cable is my next move, down to the computer shop tommorow. The hard disk is formated with Win 98 SE. I've tryed its own "Boot up disk" and also another system "Boot up disk", but the floppy drive won't read it.

For more info, I've used the CMOS/BIOS feature where it autodetect the hard disk; and it did not find it!!!!!!!!
AGAIN.......HELP PLEASE~~~~~~~~~~

[highrisemech]

Check the floppy drive size listed in the bios it is probably set to 51/4 instaed of the proper 31/2 then retry.
Also check your jumper settings on your harddrive. Is it a master on the IDE channel if so it should be jumpered as such.

[Cricket]

Hi The Stocker,

Those older hard drives might not get detected by the Auto Detect feature in BIOS. Since you've already entered the hard drive geometry, you should be okay. Check the jumper on the back as highrisemech mentioned.

For your floppy cable, is the end connector with the twist on the floppy?

Are you sure you want to run Win98SE on a 486DX? Win95 (or even Win 3.1) might be a better choice. How much RAM do you have for that motherboard? For Win98SE, 36MB would be minimum I would try to use (64MB would be even better, but I'm not sure the chipset could support that much). With Win3.1 you could get away with 8 and with Win95 16MB is okay.

For more background information on the personal computer, try visiting this site: http://www.pcguide.com It has a wealth of information on it. Click on the Topic Index link in the left panel.

Cricket

[The Stocker]

Thank you "highrisemech", the floppy drive size is set up properly within the CMOS/BIOS; and the hard disk jumpers were not changed, it was the master and only drive in the old system, and it still is the master in this new system.

Thank you "Cricket", the connector with the twist in it is connected to the floppy. The old system (Intel 486 dx4 100mgh) was running Win98 SE, Office 97, and AOL Canada version6, without any problem at all. If I could access the hard disk on this new system, I would be able to tell you if Win 98 SE is too much for it!!!! I have 24meg 72pin RAM on the motherboard.

For more info, The CD music thing in my prior post was a mistake. As I wrote last night, my next thing is to replace the data cable for both disk.
Any help is appreciated...........The Stocker

Good Afternoon, for more info, I've bought new data cable, tried them on and......NO CHANGES!!!!!!!!
I've contacted the motherboard previous owner, hopefully, he'll be reading this soon. I want to test the floppy in question on my running system, but I'm afraid of ruinning that one too!
Any help is appreciated...........The Stocker

[Alfie]

On older computers the ide connectors and floppy connectors are of an open design,it's easy to bend a pin or line up the cables so that they miss a row of pins.Is this the case with your mobo?(no plastic encasing)
Make sure that none of the pins on the motherboard are bent,make sure the red line on ribbon cable is lined up on pin 1 on motherboard and pin 1 of device.
With some cables one of the holes may be blocked off,hence making contact impossible,make sure this is not the case.
If you find that it is,make sure you didn't bend any pins(they can be straightened with needlenose pliers,be vey careful)and the blocked hole can be punched out.