The boot order is indicated by the BIOS or CMOS SETUP. You may need to enter to the SETUP and change the boot order, indicating to boot with A drive first. When you power up the computer, look for the message: "Press <A key> for CMOS SETUP" and enter to the cmos configuration.
Good luck.
Because the BIOS is probably set to boot the hard drive first. The A drive, second or third depending on the boot order set in the BIOS.
The BIOS default is CD/DVD first but it must have one of these in the drive or it will go to
" removeable devices" which is the "A" drive in this case. If nothing is in this drive it will boot from the hard drive which is third and LAN is fouth. If I put a blank floppy in the A drive and boot I get a small dash flashing prompt. If I put a floppy with files in the A drive and boot I get an error message
"Non system disk or disk error etc. If I change the set-up to boot from removable devices the same two problems occur. What I am trying to do is flash the BIOS with an updated BIOS that is on the floppy.
AHH...ok. You're missing a boot file in the floppy - that's why you're getting "Non system disk". Redo the file creation for the flash file. Something is missing.
There is only 1 file on the floppy, that is the new BIOS and it shows it is there if I look in "My computer" and open the a drive. The file downloads as a Zip file but I have no way of telling if it is un zipped other than the pop-up says it is unzipping the file.
What is the make and model of your computer?
Note: When updating your computer's BIOS, the update process fails if you use a floppy disk formatted in Microsoft® Windows® 2000, Windows NT®, or Windows XP. Instead, use a new IBM pre-formatted disk. Refer to Readme.txt file for more details.
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What are you trying to boot with? most current computers boot first to the cd (or dvd )drive then to the hard drive, then as a lst resort the a drive then the epromm boot from ethernet.
you would have to adjust boot order (each computer does it different, but try F12 during boot) look at the messages at the bottom of the screen and it will say something like boot order or boot something. It will then allow you to select the A drive to boot from.
I’m happy to help further over the phone at https://www.6ya.com/expert/thomas_b83e841f114394f4
This does not have to do with boot order as the BIOS default is D drive, A drive, C drive and LAN. It should boot from the 1st dvice that has media in it. It dos not even if I chang the boot order to A drive first and have a floppy in it.
what OS are you booting to? Does it try to read the disk? when was the last time you read the a drive? anything newer than win95 (except linux) is too big. It is easier to create a CD that is a boot disk. It should save you some insanity
My computer is a 2002 Gateway SOLO 1450 Laptop, XP OS. I did load this file on a CD but the computer would not boot to it. My current thinking is that there is a problem with the file as it transferred from my desktop to a disc, maybe corrupted or not fully open. If I put a blank floppy in the drive and boot all I get is a black screen with a small flashing cursor, no inputs are accepted, when I put the disk with the file on it in the drive and boot I get a disk error.
got it. trying to boot to a bios update disk.
how did you create the bootable floppy?
Did they give you a file or a bootable image?
to create a boot disk from xp Creating a Windows XP boot disk
Create MS-DOS bootable diskette
When formatting a floppy diskette, you have the option of creating a MS-DOS startup disk, just follow the steps below.
Place diskette in the computer.
Open "My Computer", right-click the A: drive and click Format.
In the Format window, check Create an MS-DOS startup disk.
Click Start
once that is done, copy the bios file to the floppy, let me know how it goes.
The file was a download from Gateway, only one available. was downloaded to desktop. When opened in desktop an unzip window appeared and showed progress, almost immediately a word pad message screen would come up, it was about running the floppy. When I removed the word pad message the unzip screen had disappeared. This occured almost every time I opened the download. Occasionally for unkown reason the word pad message did not come up and the unzip routine would go to completion. I have made the restore disk on a new floppy and booted, the result was a normal boot with no error messages and nothing unusual. I am ready to re-try the BIOS installation but will not do it until you say so.
I think you have nothing to lose. After not working for 5 years this sounds like your best shot.
Sorry if I gave you the impression the computer was not working, it usually works fine, I just have not had a good battery in it for 5 years. Over time the unit slows down and when it gets too slow for me I reload the OS and programs. I did this last Feb. and it was as fast as ever until about July when I realized I had not reloaded Norton. After reloading Norton it went back to slow mode.
Well I booted twice with the floppy in the A drive and I did not get a boot to a: just a normal boot. I went into the BIOS and changed the boot order to removable disk, CD drive, hard disk, LAN, now I got the disk error message. If you have any ideas let me know, in the meantime I am going to retry the transfer from download to disk and then boot.
I purchased a 10 pack of IMATION disks on 11-22, printed on the box is "IBM formatted 2HD". I have no way of knowing if this is a new format or an old format?
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My computer is a 2002 Gateway SOLO 1450 laptop.
Why I am doing this? About 5 years ago the computer quit working and I took it to a local shop. They did not fix the computer but they did ruin the battery but I did not find this out until it was fixed by Gateway. I have been without a battery since then. Recently purchased a battry that the supplier stated would work in my unit. Battery is the sme configureatin but is higher voltage and current rating. My computer does not recognize this battery. Supplier says this can be corrected by updating the BIOS. Only one update available from Gateway. It consists of one file, 637 kb, and is a .exe file. My A drive seems to be working properly. It would seem that there is a problem with this file when it is transferred from the desktop to the floppy. I even transferred it to a CD but the computer would not boot to that drive even though it is # 1. I am awaiting any suggestions you may have and I will continue to do the transfer of the file to a floppy and see if I can it to run.
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