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a: AND b: drives!!

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by hlopezj

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Trying to redo my Windows 98 computer (it's an older Pentium 166 MHz machine) and I have a couple of problems with it. One, half way through the Windows installation process when it says that it's configuring devices and creating desktop shortcuts and stuff... it freezes. Two, once I reboot the computer and it gets to the same point in the installation process again, it finishes without error freezing this time BUT... when all is said and done, I now have both an a: drive AND a b: drive!! Ifyou click on the a: drive, the computer freezes for 30 seconds to a minutes until it times out and tells you the "drive is not ready". The b: drive works perfectly. By the way, no, I do not have two floppy drives installed. I only have a 3-1/2" drive that used to be the a: drive. Can anybody tell me why this is happening? This also happened to another computer when I tried to redo the machine with Windows 98. Different machines, different Windows 98 CD's... exact same problem.

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by thechas

As to the A: & B: drives, what I believe is happening is that your floppy drive is connected as the B: drive.

For the floppy drive to be an A: drive, the twist in the standard floppy cable must be between the floppy and the motherboard.
If the twist is not in the cable, or is after the drive, by default, the drive is B:

Alternately, the floppy drives you bought for these systems came configured as A: drives, and require a cable without the twist.

The 3rd possability is that the swap floppy drives switch in BIOS settings is set to true.

I have found that Windows 98 can have problems with the floppy drive controller using the default drivers. I always use the chipset manufactures drivers for the motherboard devices.
Some of these drivers are now 4 years and numerous revisions newer than the default W98 drivers.

Chas

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