Emailing MSI asking if they have any later BIOS, as previously suggested, may turn out to be fruitful, with a little luck.
Failing that, it sounds like from your original post that things were OK, then you installed this newer Y2K compliant BIOS, which although did not give you greater HDD support, created the problem with your floppy.
I don't know much about drive overlay software - I have never used it - but perhaps, assuming the drive overlay was installed with the previous BIOS, after the update it somehow developed this problem where maybe it is mismatched between the two BIOS versions. So perhaps if you really want to get rid of the second floppy problem, and you don't mind setting up the drive overlay again, consider the following steps:
1) Remove the drive overlay
2) Load your BIOS defaults and customise the settings the way you want them
3) Re-apply the drive overlay. Hopefully now the drive overlay will be correctly applied to the new BIOS and settings, and identify that there is no floppy B present and no floppy B configured in the BIOS, and carry this setup correctly across.
20GB: MS-5129 06/10/97-i430VX-2A59GM49C-00
i hate to say it, but if that were the case, it would be an easy fix, but i probably should have mentioned that this problem was here before the bios update ever took place. I think im going to try changing floppy drives. strange story, this mobo was in a system running win xp before this, and it didn't encounter the floppy problem.
In that case, my considerations would be:
A) Something changed during the transfer of the mobo (if I understand correctly the board was previously in a different case or with different hardware) which has yet to be identified. I assume you were also running the overlay software previously.
OR
B) There is a bug in the BIOS or overlay software causing this mismatch, that you may not be able to resolve at present. Especially if the overlay software is quite recent, and considering the date of the BIOS, I would consider this a real possibility. If this is the only problem and you are certain that your mainboard and/or other hardware is not faulty, maybe the best thing to do is to simply install a second physical floppy drive and the overlay software may then be happy. Possibly there may be occassional advantages in having two floppy drives also.
A) Something changed during the transfer of the mobo (if I understand correctly the board was previously in a different case or with different hardware) which has yet to be identified. I assume you were also running the overlay software previously.
OR
B) There is a bug in the BIOS or overlay software causing this mismatch, that you may not be able to resolve at present. Especially if the overlay software is quite recent, and considering the date of the BIOS, I would consider this a real possibility. If this is the only problem and you are certain that your mainboard and/or other hardware is not faulty, maybe the best thing to do is to simply install a second physical floppy drive and the overlay software may then be happy. Possibly there may be occassional advantages in having two floppy drives also.
problem was there before putting on any sort of overlay software, i was using a 2 gig drive in the other system when it was working okay in.
i think it might just be the floppy drive, gonna try tossing in a different one when i have a chance. and yea, its possible the board just dosent like some piece of hardware, and its having issues handing out irq's, so something took up whats useually used for the floppy drive. which makes me wonder if i should try playing with reserved irq's.
i think it might just be the floppy drive, gonna try tossing in a different one when i have a chance. and yea, its possible the board just dosent like some piece of hardware, and its having issues handing out irq's, so something took up whats useually used for the floppy drive. which makes me wonder if i should try playing with reserved irq's.
In that case, possibly a board problem.
Could also try another floppy drive in case a fault is confusing the system, and also removing other drives temporarily to see if these are conflicting.
Finally removing both the CMOS battery and clear CMOS jumper overnight is something that worked for me once - possibly if there is a corrupt BIOS setting this could work for you also.
You are using the regular floppy cable with two sets of drive connectors? If you have an old style cable with only one drive connector I wonder if this could confuse the isse.
Could also try another floppy drive in case a fault is confusing the system, and also removing other drives temporarily to see if these are conflicting.
Finally removing both the CMOS battery and clear CMOS jumper overnight is something that worked for me once - possibly if there is a corrupt BIOS setting this could work for you also.
You are using the regular floppy cable with two sets of drive connectors? If you have an old style cable with only one drive connector I wonder if this could confuse the isse.
There is a later BIOS from Unicore but not economically viable, I expect.
http://www.wimsbios.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3800
http://www.wimsbios.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3800
Tested patched BIOSes. Untested patched BIOSes.
Emails *will* be ignored unless the subject line starts "Wim's BIOS forum"
Emails *will* be ignored unless the subject line starts "Wim's BIOS forum"
Did you try another floppy drive or get it working by any chance yet?
Now that I re-read your post and think about it, I agree that a faulty floppy drive may do such things as to confuse drive letters. So as you suggested, this is worth a try.
Now that I re-read your post and think about it, I agree that a faulty floppy drive may do such things as to confuse drive letters. So as you suggested, this is worth a try.