I have a dell e521. After starting the laptop, the black screen shows the error diskette drive failure. After I choose load Windows XP anyway option, it only loads the screen, nothing else. The laptop does not work. How can I fix this error?
We have a few suspects for this. Recently installed software, a BIOS setting, The operating systems or the disk drive itself.
The easiest way to find out what the problem is to run the pre-boot assessment.
There are 2 ways to do this.
1. Restart the computer and when the Dell logo comes up, press F12. On the boot menu choose diagnostics and run the reboot assessment.
2. Restart the computer while holding down the 0 key at the top of your keyboard. This will automatically run the system’s pre-boot assessment.
After a few minutes it should give you a PSA code. Write down the PSA code and check with the Dell manual to find out regarding which part it’s having issues. You can also post the code here so we can tell you what it is.Â
Whenever we on the computer the bios start checking all the devices.
The bios is checking for an enabled device but that device is not there make sure you have installed diskette drive or not?
You can ignore this problem but it is very simple to fix this problem. Simply you need to change the setting or configuration of your system’s Bios.Â
1. Shut down your computer and unplug the cables.
2. Remove the cover of computer.
3. Remove the battery (button type) cell, which actually stores the computer configuration. It will erase the bios configuration.
Another method is that, you can clear the bios setting by installing a jumper on the Motherboard and after that carefully return the jumper on its previous position.
Hi Nadiajgoff,
diskette drive 0 seek failure error means that your computer can't find the floppy drive at boot time. This usually happens because motherboard battery is removed, died or the BIOS has been reset at start up. No matter what the cause of the problem is here is what you need to do:
1) Restart your system and boot in the BIOS setup (usually by pressing F2).
2) Highlight the Drive A option and change it to NONE which means you do not have a floppy drive.
3) Also make sure that your computer can see your Hard drive correctly by choosing it as the first boot device.
Hope this helps you.
