A: Drive error..help

[melinda9723]

I am working on my sisters Dell Deminsion 4100 computer because when she tried to start it up the computer would ask for a password before it even booted into windows xp home. After doing some research on the computer, I took the cmos battery out and put it back in to reset the password because no one new it. I then put the cover back on and hooked everything back up but now when I restart the computer, after the dell screen, i get another black screen with the dell log in the top right hand corner and on the left side it is telling me about the bios.Then it tells me Legacy Keyboard and Legacy mouse is detected and usb legacy is enabled and then I see this:
A: Drive Error
Press <Del> to resume

then tell it to boot normally and then the windows xp logo screen comes up and the the system restarts. Any advice?

[Steve R Jones]

Reopen the case and double check the floppy drive power and ribbon cable and make sure they are properly connected.

[Murf]

When you took the CMOS battery out the BIOS reset to default. You need to get into SETUP and reset the date and time and make sure the drives are recognized.

Note: Screen tells you what key to get into SETUP (Dell is usually the F1 or F2 key(.

[melinda9723]

I did reset the time after I put the battery back in.I am currently back in setup and this is what i see:
IDE Configuration:
Primary IDE Master [ ST320413A]
Primary IDE Slave [ Not Installed]
Secondary IDE Master [Samsung Dvd-rom SD-6]
Secondary IDE Slave [PCRW1208]

under the boot tab:
1st boot device: [ARMD-FDD]
2nd boot device:[IDE-HDD]
3rd boot device: [ATAPI CDROM]
4th boot device: [Disabled]

In event viewer in the system log the first error is event id :7026 source :service control manager
the following boot-start or system-start failed to load:
AFD
Fibs
IPSec
MRxSmb
MSFWHLPR
NetBIOS
P3
RasAcd
Rdbss
SYMTDI
Tcpip

As far as I can tell, this system has a floppy drive, dvd rom and a cd rom on the front.My sister said that the system started saying A: Drive error when she tried to boot the system up before it started asking for a password. I am not connected to the internet on this computer.Thanks for all and any help.

i just restarted the system and instead of the disk error at the bottom of the page I am getting :
Fixed Disk 0:ST3204134A
(UDMA=100MHz)
ATAPI CD-ROM SAMSUNG DVD-ROM SD-612

Press Del to resume

[Shinma]

... under the boot tab:
1st boot device: [ARMD-FDD]
2nd boot device:[IDE-HDD]
3rd boot device: [ATAPI CDROM]
4th boot device: [Disabled] ...

Change first boot device to IDE-HDD

If a Zip/LS120 drive is not being used,
You can set ARMD-FDD to disabled.

[Train]

ARMD-FDD: Advanced Removeable Media Device Floppy Disk Drive. Basically, a zip drive or LS-120.

[melinda9723]

i changed the first boot device and rebooted and nothing has changed.thanks for helping.
I was just looking at the tower and the top cd rom says dvd and the one under that one is a philips cdrw 1200 series and it has multi-read on it and the disk in light is blinking green but there is no disk in the drive but the writing light is not blinking so I am thinking when I took the battery out and put it back in could I have messed up the boot sequence?

[Broni]

Make sure, floppy drive ribbon is not connected in reverse manor.

[Shinma]

i changed the first boot device and rebooted and nothing has changed...

Describe current symptom(s).
Is it failing to start Windows?

[melinda9723]

yes, windows fails to start. I do get the windows xp screen but after that it restarts itself and goes to the page I was telling you about before that says A; Drive Error
As for the connections, I don't know what goes where but I can look inside again and tell you what I see.

[Shinma]

... I do get the windows xp screen but after that it restarts itself and goes to the page I was telling you about before that says A; Drive Error ...

If you changed the boot order and disabled the Zip/LS-120 drive,
It should not even show any errors due to it being disabled in the CMOS/BIOS menu.
With that said,
If you have confirmed the boot order and disabled the Zip/LS-120 drive,
You can physically disconnect the data and power cable for the Zip/LS-120 drive.

[SuperSparks]

Try starting Windows in Safe Mode. I think you have two unrelated problems here.

[melinda9723]

If you changed the boot order and disabled the Zip/LS-120 drive,
It should not even show any errors due to it being disabled in the CMOS/BIOS menu.
With that said,
If you have confirmed the boot order and disabled the Zip/LS-120 drive,
You can physically disconnect the data and power cable for the Zip/LS-120 drive.

I don't know what the Zip/LS-120 is so I am going to need some help making sure it is disabled. Sorry about the confusion.

SuperSparks,
I can start the computer in safe mode with no problem.

[SuperSparks]

OK, for the moment forget about the A: drive message it isn't important.

For the Windows restarting problem, go to Control Panel>System>Advanced>Startup & Recovery>Settings and uncheck "Automatically restart". The next time it happens you'll most likely get a Stop error, which is much easier to troubleshoot. Post back what it says.

[lgbpop]

Take the floppy disk out of the floppy drive. Sounds as if there's a non-bootable disk in there, and it's being detected first because of the boot order.