A funny thing happened...

[someolboy]

Hey...
I was reconfiguring my pc hardware, to make room for an internal 100mb zip drive. I figured that since I was now going to have the 100 mb zip drive I could loose the 3-1/2" floppy drive to make more drive slots available..... fine...
WRONG!
My computer won't even boot up with out the floppy installed, even after removing it in the system bios!

My computer would produce a system protection error and halt the system... any ideas anyone?
Win 98 original version. ( Can't afford to buy new op sys every few years.. Bill !)

[edfair]

Boot order?
Don't recall having run across one that couldn't go diskless, but there is always a first time.

[glc]

You aren't trying to connect the zip drive to the floppy cable, are you? If you are connecting it to the IDE (as it should be) have you reviewed the jumper settings on the drives?

[someolboy]

Thanks for the input & good ideas, but...

The Zip drive jumper is set at factory default setting, (slave).
It is connected to the middle connector of Ide 2 ribbon cable.
Also noted pin #1 position on drive connector, for correct alignment of the IDE 2 ribbon cable. The CD-RW drive is the (master) component for IDE 2.

I'm wondering if there is something in the windows op sys referring back to the 3-1/2" floppy, as the source for a program, during boot up...?

I have the boot sequence set up in bios to:

1. boot from hard drive
2. boot from CD drive
3. boot from zip drive
4. boot from other device

where other device = scsi drive

Now, I don't remember going into control panel> system devices and removing the floppy there, but I know I took it out of bios... I'll try it again this weekend and see what happens... remove it from device mngr 1st this time.

[glc]

Check in your bios for a setting - "report no floppy for win95" - whatever it's set to, change it.