Changed boot order in BIOS, now I need to hit F1 to boot windows, what did I do wrong

J

Joyce P

New Member
Hi. I had to reload windows XP and I wanted to format the hard drive too so I booted it up right off the Windows DVD. First I went into BIOS and changed the boot order to CD drive boot first, then after the install was complete I went back in and changed it back to the hard drive being #1 on the boot priority. The second and third boot devices are disabled. Now everytime I turn on the computer it says "Floppy drive failed to boot (40)"...then it'll say press F1 to boot Windows or DEL to go back to BIOS. I don't understand why it's doing this because I don't have a floppy in the boot order. After hitting F1 Windows boots up fine, this wasn't happening before. Any idea what I did wrong? I have tried resetting the defaults in BIOS and starting over but it keeps happening. Could the "(40)" be an indicator of something? Thanks for any ideas!

- Joyce
 
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Go into BIOS and check if it's recognizing your HDD as master IDE/SATA. Have you been playing around with the cables inside of your computer prior to this error?
 
The #40 error code points at a floppy cable reversed! Try disabling the floppy search option if you find that enabled in the bios for some reason. The defaults for the bios will see the floppy option as the first boot device automatically. Now you have to go back into the boot order to see HD first and the rest disabled to point the boot device search at the hard drive.
 
This is really strange because I didn't touch any hardware prior to this happening, all I did is reformat the HD and reinstall Windows. When it refers to floppy cables is it referring to all data drives, CD drives included, because it doesn't have a 3.5" or anything other than two CD drives. Should I try swapping the cables? Thanks so much guys! If I have to live with it...I'll live with it and press F1 to boot but it is perplexing. Thanks as usual, you guys are always big help.

xoxo
- Joyce
 
Joyce P said:
This is really strange because I didn't touch any hardware prior to this happening, all I did is reformat the HD and reinstall Windows. When it refers to floppy cables is it referring to all data drives, CD drives included, because it doesn't have a 3.5" or anything other than two CD drives. Should I try swapping the cables? Thanks so much guys! If I have to live with it...I'll live with it and press F1 to boot but it is perplexing. Thanks as usual, you guys are always big help.

xoxo
- Joyce
Click to expand...
I had this issue once.One of my back up drives was dead and I had to hit F1 until I figured out the drive was dead.Strange that the drive still showed data but would not come up on boot up.
 
That does sound more likely since you are seeing this out of the blue so to speak. One way to see if a drive went would be simply running things in both optical drives one at a time.

Playing audio cds or trying to read what's on different software disks by canceling the installer when that first comes up in order to simply browse the disk to look through folders. If one drive starts running into problems you have one you can simply unplug the cable from and see what happens on the next startup.

Sometimes it won't be a drive however but simply a cable needing to be replaced. A bad cable will cause any number of problems to be seen until removed and a new one used instead.
 
Joyce P said:
Any idea what I did wrong? I have tried resetting the defaults in BIOS and starting over but it keeps happening. Could the "(40)" be an indicator of something? Thanks for any ideas!

- Joyce
Click to expand...

Joyce P said:
This is really strange because I didn't touch any hardware prior to this happening, all I did is reformat the HD and reinstall Windows. When it refers to floppy cables is it referring to all data drives, CD drives included, because it doesn't have a 3.5" or anything other than two CD drives. Should I try swapping the cables? Thanks so much guys! If I have to live with it...I'll live with it and press F1 to boot but it is perplexing. Thanks as usual, you guys are always big help.

xoxo
- Joyce
Click to expand...

Sounds like that even though you dont have a floppy drive somehow or another the Floppy Port has been enabled in the bios. Check in the bios and disable the Floppy port and see if that stops it.
 
This is why looking to see if any item in the boot order is set to floppy as well as making sure the floppy search option is turned off would be the first thing to look at. Another item would be to disable the floppy controller while you are in the bios setup if that option is seen. On most newer boards it will only be the floppy search while older models also provided the other option.
 
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