boot problems win98 se

[mcslack]

howdy. i just built my first system and can't get it to boot. specs:

ecs k7s5a mobo
athlon xp 1.4
crucial 256 ddr
dvdrom
floppy
20 gig HD (new)

bios sees all drives and set up was a breeze. i'm trying to boot with a win98 SE foppy with fdisk on it to partition the HD. i've set it to boot from floppy but every time i try i get the same message:
"searching for boot record from floppy..not found
searching for boot record from CDROM..not found
searching for boot record from IDE-0..OK

invalid system disk
replace the desk, and then press any key"

i can't find the any key - just kidding.

i've got three different boot disks from three different sources and even burned one to a CD and tried booting from that. nothing has worked. anybody have any ideas?

thanks in advance. i love this site

[Confused]

Could have a problem with your floppy or bootdisk. You can go to www.bootdisk.com and get a new one. Also WIN98 is bootable, so you could try changing boot sequence to boot from CD-ROM and boot from WIN98 CD.
Chas

[Cricket]

Hi mcslack,

Make sure the floppy cable is installed properly...red stripe to pin 1 on the motherboard and floppy drive, end with the twist on the floppy drive. Don't use the middle connector.

Make sure the floppy type is set properly in BIOS...3.5" 1.44MB.

Make sure the floppy drive is the first boot device in BIOS.

Try another floppy cable.

Try another floppy drive.

Cricket

[glc]

I'm closing this one, let's keep your thread in Assembly going, that's the most appropriate forum for this issue.