Floppy drive not responding.

[Xandros Pilosa]

HermanAA wrote:
--snip--
> Both Camly and myself know XP. We are unfamiliar with WIN95.
> We have the install-CD for XP (and not for WIN95).

So I would take win95 out of perspective completely. Concerning winXP, 
you have to consider sys. requirements - 1 GB hd is way to thin for the 
appetite of that o.s.

--snip--

> The BIOS did not recognize the drive afaict.

Did you (or her) check jumpers settings on cd drive according to the 
cable connection?

> However, we can open and close the drive door under WIN95 control.
>  (does this mean there is hope?)

I don't know what you mean by that. Did you eject the drive tray from 
within WIN95 e.g. clicking the eject command from the menu? If that was 
the case, it means that o.s. did recognize the drive, so did the bios, 
we may assume.

But altogether, I do not see any reason to stick with win95. Not just 
because of the security issues I mentioned, also because she may find 
herself in agony finding modern or at list usable programs for win95 and 
even the vast of recent programs from ms won't be compatible. She wants 
the usable system, doesn't she?

--snip--

> Power-ON to WIN95 screen takes very long.

It is normal, if  I remember correctly.

> Camly says it has USB (maybe not working).

It would be wise to check, as installing some flavor of linux from usb 
stick can also be a good option.

> It has 2 Harddisks of 1 GB each. It has 256 MB memory.

1 GB - to small for winxp for certain. Mem - enough for some linux 
distors. What about CPU?

> I have a spare 8GB harddisk to contribute.

Good. Another suggestion: you can put this hd in your own machine and 
install linux distro on it (again, suitable for her hw) and then give 
her the hd with linux already intalled.
In the matter of dual booting, I don't think you have enough space for 
that with that drive.

--snip--

> The BIOS does not mention CD. I dont expect WIN95 can access the CDROM
> drive. I will do some more checking. (maybe we jumped to conclusions too
> early?)

Where in the bios did you check? It should be listed with other two hds 
- look for entries on ATA controllers. Also check the boot options for 
booting from cd or usb.

> I remember Camly was searching for the driver, finding none.

As far I can remember, there was no need for drivers for cd drive in 
win95, only for DOS. Sorry I did not remember that in my first post.
So it must be some other problem, almost for sure.

--snip--
> She can have it both ways: A dual-boot system is easily made.
>  (she does not know that yet .....).

I have doubts about that on this hw. 8 GB is hardly enough for xp alone, 
I think. And if you cannot enable booting from cd in bios, you may find 
winxp installation cd useless.


> Camly has (considerable) experience on an IBM-laptop.
> This girl has potential: She was looking around for CDROM-drivers like a
> pro. 

You may conclude from statements above, searching for drivers for win95 
is probably useless, because there are probably none (just maybe for DOS).

Also I did not have to hookup any floppy or CDROM, she did it all
> after I told her what to look for (2 harddr. connectors, 1
> floppy-connector, IDE cable-orientation, here are my old cables).

I assume there are some hardware problems on her system. Are you sure, 
the drive works? Did you test it on your machine?
Again, I would check the jumpers on cd drive and also on hard drives. 
Check connections.
Sometimes cables may also cause problems, maybe you should try some 
other cables.

Even if cd drive won't work at the end, there is still some light from 
linux world. As already mentioned, you still have, among others, the 
option to install linux on 8 GB hd you have on your machine and simply 
transfer hd to hers. That way she won't have "dual booting" system, just 
"solo" system, but reasonably safe and usable.

Best regards!