Somewhat OT--hdw: ECS motherboard & SBM

[A LeDonne]

On 6/29/06, Mark Jarvis <mark.jarvis at pvmail.maricopa.edu> wrote:
>
> Some time ago, in a moment of ill-advised penny pinching I bought one of
> Fry's ECS motherboard & AMD cpu specials. (I prefer AMD cpus, it's the
> cheapo mobo that has caused me the problems I've had.) I like to have a
> Smart Boot Manager (SBM) diskette around as an "insurance policy" way to
> boot into the various operating systems on my box. After installing the
> new motherboard, I found that although it would boot from an old DOS
> diskette, it wouldn't boot from an SBM diskette. I cussed mildly &
> accepted it. Then Tuesday, for some reason I tried again--whaddaya
> know--it worked! I figured that I must have just had a couple of bum
> diskettes when I tried before. Then I tried last night with four (4)
> known good SBM diskettes--including the one that had worked on Tuesday.
> No dice. I even burned a couple of new diskettes using the SBM on the
> Ubuntu CD. Still no dice. If that stupid board had NEVER booted from an
> SBM diskette, I'd just live with it, but the fact that it did boot
> correctly ONE TIME has me baffled.
>
> Anyone got any ideas?
>
> -mj-

You did say diskette... wiht intermittent floppy failure I would
replace the drive and the cable. My time is worth the $20 to replace
first as a highly invasive troubleshooting technique.

-A