Weird problems

[thrash-boy]

ok well recently Ive had a few problems booting my PC that i have never had before.

 

here are my 2 problems:

 

 

 

1. I just opened my computer and found a new drive called "3 and a half floppy (A:)". The problem is the computer doesn't have a floppy drive and this is the first time i have seen this.

 

I figured it could be one of my many programs that create fake drives for you to mount disc images to, so i went through them all and they all had the number of drives to 0 or disabled, so it wasn't that. if it was it would probably be a DVD drive anyway.

 

When i tried to right click the drive to go to properties my computer stopped responding. I right click another drive and went to the hardware tab and selected the floppy drive, and it says:

 

Manufacturer: (Standard floppy disc drives)

 

Location: on Standard floppy disc controller

 

Device Status: this device is working properly

 

I am totally lost on this one

 

 

 

2. Boot problems. A while back i booted up and got a message something like (cant remember exactly):

 

Disc read error

Press Ctrl+alt+del to retry

 

It was the first time i had ever seen the message so i just pressed ctrl+alt+del and it booted up fine.

 

Since then i've had a couple of times this long message:

 

Intel(r) Boot Agent FE v4.1.16

Copyright 1997-2004 Intel Corp



Intel Boot Agent base code (PXE-2.1 build 084)

Copyright 1997-2004 Intel Corp



CLIENT MAC ADDR: 00 13 20 8E BA 0F GUID: 184D1FEE 5029 DA11 8000 4E45435F4349



PXE-E53: No boot filename received

PXE-M0F: Exiting Intel boot agent

 

im not sure if thats letter for letter because i couldnt read my handwriting (which was rushed) very well.

 

Im also very lost on what that means.

 

 

 

could both the problems possibly be related?

 

 

 

anyway what im running:

 

It's a Packard Bell iMedia A887

 

(some details are from CPU-Z because i don't know them off the top of my head)

 

-Win XP Media Center Edition 2005 with SP3 and any new updates that auto update thing downloads (Basically the same as home edition with media center im told)

 

-Motherboard: Intel D915PWK. I remember updating BIOS a while ago

 

-Processor: Intel P4 630 @ 3.00GHZ

 

-Memory: 2048mb DDR PC3200

 

 

 

anymore details just ask

 

thanks for all help in advance! :thumbsup:

[thrash-boy]

ok just done some googling and the boot problem is something to do with booting over a network or something.

 

could it be something wrong with reading from my hard drive happening (like happened with the disc read error message) so the BIOS is moving down the priority list of boot options and trying to boot from a network, which it is clearly not set up to do?

[ClareJonsson]

Thrash is correct, your BIOS will have an option too boot from a network, and your PC is looking for a server to boot from. Disable this feature and make sure your first boot device is your hard drive.

 

 

 

The floppy drive problem could be one of two things:

 

1. The floppy drive controller is enabled (This is the default), go to your BIOS setup and disable it.

 

2. Some BIOSs allow you to define USB drives as different types of media, such as hard drive or floppy. Do you have a pen drive plugged into one of the USB ports? If so, take a look at how your BIOS is configuring it/them.