# Floppy Diskette Seek Failure during startup



## angeLinereed

What do I do? I'm not a computer wizard, Dell will not help me because my warranty is now expired, & due to the inconvienience my cd burner will not burn, or it will not recognize that there is a cd in the cd drive, or it wont even open!. i do not have a floppy disk drive i only have drive C & a few usb ports, but i need a step by step how to fix it. Im a visual learner, i tend to learn things over a few times over & over(if you get what im saying) Someone Please help me! its been like this for a few weeks & im tired of trying to fix it & messing it all up again. & from the other forums i've read about, it didnt help me. but the error message shows up on a black screen & says

" _*Floppy Diskette seek Failure
Strike F1 key to continue or F2 to run the setup utility*_ "​
& i press F2 and i dont know what to do, when i turn on drives 1,2,3 it just shows up as drives are missing. and then i tried trouble shooting , and it doesnt work also. i've tried help & support on dell & it doesnt make sense to me. & i've tried clicking on to my computer then right clicking on drive c and properties then the tools tab & i checked "Scan or & attempt to fix bad sectors" and it goes through 4 phases before it says that its finished and nothing was done to fix anything. & i've looked through the manuals from the computer and it didnt help as well. someone please help me!


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## lotuseclat79

angeLinereed said:


> What do I do? I'm not a computer wizard, Dell will not help me because my warranty is now expired, & due to the inconvienience my cd burner will not burn, or it will not recognize that there is a cd in the cd drive, or it wont even open!. i do not have a floppy disk drive i only have drive C & a few usb ports, but i need a step by step how to fix it. Im a visual learner, i tend to learn things over a few times over & over(if you get what im saying) Someone Please help me! its been like this for a few weeks & im tired of trying to fix it & messing it all up again. & from the other forums i've read about, it didnt help me. but the error message shows up on a black screen & says
> 
> " _*Floppy Diskette seek Failure
> Strike F1 key to continue or F2 to run the setup utility*_ "​
> & i press F2 and i dont know what to do, when i turn on drives 1,2,3 it just shows up as drives are missing. and then i tried trouble shooting , and it doesnt work also. i've tried help & support on dell & it doesnt make sense to me. & i've tried clicking on to my computer then right clicking on drive c and properties then the tools tab & i checked "Scan or & attempt to fix bad sectors" and it goes through 4 phases before it says that its finished and nothing was done to fix anything. & i've looked through the manuals from the computer and it didnt help as well. someone please help me!


Hi angeLinereed,

Welcome to TSG!

If you do not have a floppy diskette drive as you have stated, it may be the case that your BIOS has the floppy as the first device to boot from even though you don't have a floppy - I'm guessing, so I could be wrong.

Try to get into your BIOS (F2) and check out what the boot order of devices is. If a floppy is first or occurs prior to your CD drive, then put your CD first before the hard disk drive and eliminate anything else.

-- Tom


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## angeLinereed

Here is the list it goes in if you are talking about what i think you are talking about:

_1.) On Board or USB CD-ROM Drive (not present)
2.) On Board SATA Hard Drive
3.) On Board IDE Hard Drive (not present)
4.) On Board Or USB Floppy Drive (not present)_

so i delete everything that is not present? I dont want to mess my computer up anymore than it is. & why does it say it is not present, and what does eliminating everyhing thats not present have to do with it? Why are they on this list if they arent present? Im confused, and when i contacted DELL when my warranty was working they told me to do soemthingwith my Diskette Drives. & i dont remember what they had said.


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## lotuseclat79

Hi angeLinereed,

If you have a CD-ROM drive, it should occur first in the boot order list, i.e. do not delete it from the boot order list. The SATA hard drive should occur next in the list. Since you do not even have a floppy drive, it is ok for the system to mark it not present.

Are you sure the connections for the devices inside the computer cabinet are all connected? Check that they are properly seated and not loose.

-- Tom


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## angeLinereed

im not the best tool in the shed, & i appear still confused with awe in my head. Sorry im a visual learner i can only do it step by step.


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## angeLinereed

im not the best tool in the shed, & i appear still confused with awe in my head. Sorry im a visual learner i can only do it step by step.


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## angeLinereed

im not the best tool in the shed, & i appear still confused with awe in my head. Sorry im a visual learner i can only do it step by step. & Descriptions of what things mean & what they do. I know it sucks...

ange..


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## SepiasSoul

What kind of PC do you have (make and model number, I.E. Dell Insperon 6500)? Or if its a custom built PC, what is the make and model of your motherboard? Aside from that, if you hit F2, look for something that says stop on all errors (or something to that effect). It should allow you to change it to something like stop on all errors except floppy disk (or somthing like that). I've had to do this to both of my PC's because they give me the same issue you are having when I don't have a floppy hooked up. If you are not sure what you are changing, then don't change it. Ask on TSG first. You can cause more problems for yourself if you don't. Post up how its going.

Sepias


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## veterangamer

1.) When PC says "BEEP" a few seconds after you turn it on, push DELETE (not backspace) or f2, whatever it may be. Push it in 1 second intervals to make sure you get into BIOS (blue setup screen).

2.) When the ugly blue screen appears, usually under "STANDARD CMOS CONFIGURATION" you will see information about your Hard Disks and other boot devices/cd/floppy stuff.

3.) Where it says "1.44 Floppy" or anything that has the word Floppy, push down on your arrow keypad and push enter on that menu, select DISABLED, then push escape.

4.) on your way out, select SAVE AND EXIT.

5.) good luck


once you figure that out, setting the boot order will be easier, and as the previous person said, the best boot order is #1 CD/DVD drive #2 HardDisk


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## angeLinereed

I have a Dell Dimension E3100 & it only has the CD/DVD Drive


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## angeLinereed

I have yet the idea of how to fix a computer, so i brought it to my mother-in-laws work and the computer tech fixed it there, i dont know how he did it but im very appreciative of him, and how well he fixed my computer!


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## jcjohnson72

I am working on a Dell Dimension for a friend with a similar problem. Here's how I fixed it.

Go into the BIOS by hitting F2 repeatedly once you power on the machine, it will beep when accepted.

Once the BIOS screen appears (blue/grey DOS looking screen), arrow down to the DRIVES category. Hit ENTER to work with the drives.

Highlight the Diskette drive and hit ENTER to work with.

Use the Arrow keys to move the highlighted option to OFF.

Hit ENTER to save your changes, hit ESCAPE to leave the BIOS screen. Choose to save your changes!

Hope this helps. All BIOS screens may be a little different but there are usually instructions on what keys do which actions on the bottom of the screen or over on the side.


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## Rich-M

Do we really know the pc has no floppy drive? I have seen them with them. I think it is just a case of resetting the optimum defaults on the bios which will remove the usb drive and change the rest and then setting the cd drive to 1st boot and all this will go away. This thing is getting badly complicated and I think the solution is really simple.


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## jcjohnson72

From my experience with ordering Dell's for work, and doing stuff for friends, Dell stopped including Floppy drives about 3 years ago by default. You could upgrade for $20 to have one installed. With the use of USB memory being far better I don't know why someone would choose to use floppy. With that said I know for sure this machine did not have a floppy and it was reset to the BIOS defaults and still had this error.


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## Rich-M

jcjohnson72 said:


> From my experience with ordering Dell's for work, and doing stuff for friends, Dell stopped including Floppy drives about 3 years ago by default. You could upgrade for $20 to have one installed. With the use of USB memory being far better I don't know why someone would choose to use floppy. With that said I know for sure this machine did not have a floppy and it was reset to the BIOS defaults and still had this error.


How would you know for sure this had no floppy, unless you have 2 identities here?
As for memory of course floppy has less capacity and is also more volatile but the day you can flash a bios or insert a sata driver into an XP or Vista setup with a usb anything, then I declare you correct! Until then, anyone building or buying a pc without a floppy drive, is making an enormous mistake.


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## badlt007

I have a Dell Dimension and I have tried everything mentioned above by ensuring the floppy was removed from the boot menu. Well not entirely removed as it will not allow me to do that, but it is at the bottom of the list without any boot sequence numbers beside it, but I am still getting the floppy seek error on boot up. I noticed this happened as soon as I upgraded the RAM.

Could all of this be caused by a loose connection? Any other thoughts as to why this is happening.

Please not that I have removed the floppy drive to the bottom of the menu, so technically once the boot hit the hard drive, then it should boot into the O/S, no?? PLEASE HELP!!


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## Rich-M

Are you certain the floppy drive is properly plugged in? Can you tell me what the light in the floppy drive does during bootup? And what does it do when you put a floppy disk in while in Windows?
BTW while I have never seen this example, I have seen almost everything else show up when one adds incompatible ram to a system. When you have a "ram revolt", do not expect a logical outcome. That's why I never use any but www.crucial, kingston or corsair in my builds. I once saw corrupted ram shut down VPN in a nearby laptop not even connected by wire to the system.


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## badlt007

That's the thing... THERE IS NO FLOPPY DRIVE on my Dell. There is only a CD-ROM and USB. But each time I boot the computer, it tells me"

"Floppy diskette seek failure - Strike the F1 key to continue, F2 to run the setup utility. I have gone through the BIOS and disabled anything to do with the floppy drive, but it still gives me this error each boot.

Everything was running fine until I upgraded the RAM. Could this be caused by RAM? Or just a possible loose connection within the box?


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## Rich-M

Take the ram out...it makes no sense but ram incompatibility errors don't make sense either.


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## badlt007

Rich-M said:


> Take the ram out...it makes no sense but ram incompatibility errors don't make sense either.


Okay, I will try to relocate the RAM and swap it back. Thanks!


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## attum

go to the BIOs F2 on dell.
and go down to where it says Drives.
enter and and choose Diskette here change its status to disable in the right hand-side pane.
then hit esc, save and exit. It should work now. 
hope that helps


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