🚀 go-pugleaf

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It's happened to me too! :-)

I have also seen this message on my and other computers in the past... I
just ignore it, but I'd love to know why ot occasionally appears in French
not English...

Ben.

budgie wrote:

> The strangest thing has just happened to my kids' '486 ......
>
> Boot priority is set to A; C: and when a non-bootable floppy is left
> in at bootup, the error message "Drive not ready or non-system disk"
> etc etc appears in FRENCH.  This is new!  While I understand enough
> French to get by on, I'd like it back in English.
>
> Country code etc settings are fine, unaltered.  McAfee VirusScan gives
> machine a clean bill of health.  No file on the entire machine
> contains these French words.  It isn't a BIOS option either (AMI).
>
> Any constructive suggestions will be welcome.
>
> "Pierre"

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--------------84AA9D287FE18A345EFBFAFF--

On Fri, 07 May 1999 12:48:44 GMT, budgie <budgie@NOWHERE.cantech.net.au>
wrote:

>The strangest thing has just happened to my kids' '486 ......
>
>Boot priority is set to A; C: and when a non-bootable floppy is left
>in at bootup, the error message "Drive not ready or non-system disk"
>etc etc appears in FRENCH.  This is new!  While I understand enough
>French to get by on, I'd like it back in English.

If you're seeing the "Non System disk or disk error" message, you should be
aware that this message isn't actually part of the BIOS.  It's stored on the
first sector of the floppy concerned.  You see, "non-bootable" MS-DOS disks
aren't actually non-bootable.  They are bootable -- they have a tiny boot
sector program that displays the "Non-system disk or disk error" message,
and then asks you to "press any key to continue." This is how boot sector
viruses spread; they insert themselves into a floppy's boot sector, and the
next time the "Non-system disk or disk error" message is displayed, the
virus has inserted itself in memory or your computer's hard drive.

So if you're seeing the "Non System disk or disk error" message in French,
your floppy was probably formatted with a french-language version of
Windows.  If, on the other hand, you see the "drive not ready" error, that
*is* part of the BIOS and your BIOS is corrupted somehow.

-- 
Jason Stokes: jstok@bluedog.apana.org.au

 "Any idiot can learn to program computers, and, alas, many do."

budgie wrote:
> 
> The strangest thing has just happened to my kids' '486 ......
> 
> Boot priority is set to A; C: and when a non-bootable floppy is left
> in at bootup, the error message "Drive not ready or non-system disk"
> etc etc appears in FRENCH.  This is new!  While I understand enough
> French to get by on, I'd like it back in English.
> 
> Country code etc settings are fine, unaltered.  McAfee VirusScan gives
> machine a clean bill of health.  No file on the entire machine
> contains these French words.  It isn't a BIOS option either (AMI).
> 
> Any constructive suggestions will be welcome.
> 
> "Pierre"


What type of system is it? The Compaq BIOS allows you to set the
language type you want for dialogue. Perhaps something got changed
inadvertently in the settings.


Dick Perron
dperr@gw.total-web.net
http://www.gw.total-web.net/~dperr/pc_hdwe.htm

Whether you think you can or you think you can't.........will happen.

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Rod Speed wrote:

> budgie <budgie@NOWHERE.cantech.net.au> wrote in
> message news:3732df96.3443248@news.cantech.net.au...
>
> > The strangest thing has just happened to my kids' '486 ......
>
> > Boot priority is set to A; C: and when a non-bootable
> > floppy is left in at bootup, the error message "Drive not
> > ready or non-system disk" etc etc appears in FRENCH.
>
> That's because a non system floppy basically has that error
> message string in the boot sector, with a tiny bit of code that
> does nothing but put it on the screen when you attempt to boot
> it. So its just a floppy thats somehow got that in the boot sector.
>
> You can see that by inspecting the boot sector of various non
> bootable floppys with any sector editor etc like Norton's DiskEdit.
>

Thing is, I wonder why the disks are formatted in French.. I usually use
cheap Gestetner or Nashuatec etc etc from Big W :-)

>
> > This is new!  While I understand enough
> > French to get by on, I'd like it back in English.
>
> Its a conspiracy by the frogs to rule the world. They're royally
> pissed off about the fact that english has won and french is dead.
>

AHA! Now Rod seems to have hit on something :-)

>
> > Country code etc settings are fine, unaltered.  McAfee VirusScan
> > gives machine a clean bill of health.  No file on the entire machine
> > contains these French words.  It isn't a BIOS option either (AMI).
>
> > Any constructive suggestions will be welcome.
>
> Just reformat the floppy.
>
> > "Pierre"
>
> Leave those poor frogs alone, they need their legs.

Thanks Rod, It all makes sense now :-)

Ben.


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On Fri, 07 May 1999 14:52:51 -0400, Dick Perron
<dperr@gw.total-web.net> wrote:

>budgie wrote:
(snip)

>>It isn't a BIOS option either (AMI).
>> 
>> Any constructive suggestions will be welcome.
>
>What type of system is it? The Compaq BIOS allows you to set the
>language type you want for dialogue. Perhaps something got changed
>inadvertently in the settings.

Dick, it's an AMI BIOS as I noted, and not a CMOS option.  Thanks
anyway.

Peter
PERTH - WESTERN AUSTRALIA
Remove the NOWHERE from reply address

Ben Hinton wrote:

> It's happened to me too! :-)
>
> I have also seen this message on my and other computers in the past... I
> just ignore it, but I'd love to know why ot occasionally appears in French
> not English...
>
> Ben.
>
> budgie wrote:
>
> > The strangest thing has just happened to my kids' '486 ......
> >
> > Boot priority is set to A; C: and when a non-bootable floppy is left
> > in at bootup, the error message "Drive not ready or non-system disk"
> > etc etc appears in FRENCH.  This is new!  While I understand enough
> > French to get by on, I'd like it back in English.
> >
> > Country code etc settings are fine, unaltered.  McAfee VirusScan gives
> > machine a clean bill of health.  No file on the entire machine
> > contains these French words.  It isn't a BIOS option either (AMI).
> >
> > Any constructive suggestions will be welcome.
> >
> > "Pierre"

When I crashed the NT machine I used at work two years ago, I'd sometimes get
"la pantalla azul de la muerte" - a blue-screen in Spanish.
And when I close down Front Page Express (the free WYSIWYG HTML editor that
comes with IE, as if you didn't already know) it demandez moi, "Salvare le
modifiche a Untitiled Normal Page?"
They're not constructive, and not a suggestion.  But I just felt like posting
them.
p

budgie <budgie@NOWHERE.cantech.net.au> wrote in
message news:3732df96.3443248@news.cantech.net.au...

> The strangest thing has just happened to my kids' '486 ......

> Boot priority is set to A; C: and when a non-bootable
> floppy is left in at bootup, the error message "Drive not
> ready or non-system disk" etc etc appears in FRENCH.

That's because a non system floppy basically has that error
message string in the boot sector, with a tiny bit of code that
does nothing but put it on the screen when you attempt to boot
it. So its just a floppy thats somehow got that in the boot sector.

You can see that by inspecting the boot sector of various non
bootable floppys with any sector editor etc like Norton's DiskEdit.

> This is new!  While I understand enough
> French to get by on, I'd like it back in English.

Its a conspiracy by the frogs to rule the world. They're royally
pissed off about the fact that english has won and french is dead.

> Country code etc settings are fine, unaltered.  McAfee VirusScan
> gives machine a clean bill of health.  No file on the entire machine
> contains these French words.  It isn't a BIOS option either (AMI).

> Any constructive suggestions will be welcome.

Just reformat the floppy.

> "Pierre"

Leave those poor frogs alone, they need their legs.

Ben Hinton <happy_ben@hotmail.com> wrote in
message news:37342C7B.B88063B9@hotmail.com...
> Rod Speed wrote
>> budgie <budgie@NOWHERE.cantech.net.au> wrote

>>> The strangest thing has just happened to my kids' '486 ......

>>> Boot priority is set to A; C: and when a non-bootable
>>> floppy is left in at bootup, the error message "Drive not
>>> ready or non-system disk" etc etc appears in FRENCH.

>> That's because a non system floppy basically has that error
>> message string in the boot sector, with a tiny bit of code that
>> does nothing but put it on the screen when you attempt to boot
>> it. So its just a floppy thats somehow got that in the boot sector.

>> You can see that by inspecting the boot sector of various non
>> bootable floppys with any sector editor etc like Norton's DiskEdit.

> Thing is, I wonder why the disks are formatted in French..
> I usually use cheap Gestetner or Nashuatec etc etc from Big W :-)

Thats probably how it happened, the floppys were bought preformatted
and he happened to get floppys that were intended for the frogs.

You do ocassionally see that happen with the printing on the box etc.

Rod Speed (rodspeed@ozemail.com.au) wrote:


: Thats probably how it happened, the floppys were bought preformatted
: and he happened to get floppys that were intended for the frogs.

: You do ocassionally see that happen with the printing on the box etc.

Probably intended for the Canadian market, with every second disquette
formatted in French.  

--
/* George Durbridge  Melbourne, Victoria, Australia */
/* tel (03) 9280 3390            fax (03) 9280 3288 */

George Durbridge <gdurb@aardvark.apana.org.au> wrote
in message news:7h33uo$m41$1@llama.teragen.com.au...
> Rod Speed (rodspeed@ozemail.com.au) wrote

>> Thats probably how it happened, the floppys were bought preformatted
>> and he happened to get floppys that were intended for the frogs.

>> You do ocassionally see that happen with the printing on the box etc.

> Probably intended for the Canadian market,
> with every second disquette formatted in French.

I thought all the Quebecois were primitive yokels who wouldnt
know what computers were if they bit them on the bum ?

On Sun, 9 May 1999 14:58:35 +1000, "Rod Speed"
<rodspeed@ozemail.com.au> spake thusly:

>
>George Durbridge <gdurb@aardvark.apana.org.au> wrote
>in message news:7h33uo$m41$1@llama.teragen.com.au...
>> Rod Speed (rodspeed@ozemail.com.au) wrote
>
>>> Thats probably how it happened, the floppys were bought preformatted
>>> and he happened to get floppys that were intended for the frogs.
>
>>> You do ocassionally see that happen with the printing on the box etc.
>
>> Probably intended for the Canadian market,
>> with every second disquette formatted in French.
>
>I thought all the Quebecois were primitive yokels who wouldnt
>know what computers were if they bit them on the bum ?
>
Some of us in english-speaking Canada thought so too.

--
jbuchy@hotmail.com 
(Jim, single dad to Lesleigh [Autistic] 04/20/94) 
                      
"Just when you find out life's a bitch,,it has pups"

Please note: sending me spam or flames via email means that 
you have consented to a $100 (CAN.) proofreading fee.

On Fri, 07 May 1999 12:48:44 GMT, budgie put finger to keyboard and
composed:

>The strangest thing has just happened to my kids' '486 ......
>
>Boot priority is set to A; C: and when a non-bootable floppy is left
>in at bootup, the error message "Drive not ready or non-system disk"
>etc etc appears in FRENCH.  This is new!  While I understand enough
>French to get by on, I'd like it back in English.
>
>Country code etc settings are fine, unaltered.  McAfee VirusScan gives
>machine a clean bill of health.  No file on the entire machine
>contains these French words.  It isn't a BIOS option either (AMI).
>
>Any constructive suggestions will be welcome.
>
>"Pierre"

I once dumped the Phoenix BIOS in a DEC PC at the local TAFE college
and was surprised to find foreign language (Spanish?) text strings.

You can dump your own BIOS using the DOS DEBUG command as follows:

 DEBUG
 -Df000:0,ffff

Or you can search for a particular string:

 -Sf000:0,ffff,"case_sensitive_search_string"

The search results will be in the form "F000:offset".

To see the relevant string, type 

 -Df000:offset

To dump the boot sector of a floppy diskette in drive A:, type

 -L100,0,0,1
 -D100,2ff


-- Franc Zabkar

Please remove one 'e' from my address when replying by email.

On Tue, 11 May 1999 08:32:46 GMT, franczabkar@ozeemail.com.au (Franc
Zabkar) wrote:

>On Fri, 07 May 1999 12:48:44 GMT, budgie put finger to keyboard and
>composed:
>
>>The strangest thing has just happened to my kids' '486 ......
>>
>>Boot priority is set to A; C: and when a non-bootable floppy is left
>>in at bootup, the error message "Drive not ready or non-system disk"
>>etc etc appears in FRENCH.  This is new!  While I understand enough
>>French to get by on, I'd like it back in English.
>>
>>Country code etc settings are fine, unaltered.  McAfee VirusScan gives
>>machine a clean bill of health.  No file on the entire machine
>>contains these French words.  It isn't a BIOS option either (AMI).
>>
>>Any constructive suggestions will be welcome.
>>
>>"Pierre"
>
>I once dumped the Phoenix BIOS in a DEC PC at the local TAFE college
>and was surprised to find foreign language (Spanish?) text strings.
>

(snip)

Thanks to Frank and all the others who replied ....
Turns out one of the little sprogs lent a few of his disks to school
mates, and somehow the boot sectors picked up the frog version  of the
message.  Dunno how, as it would require the other machine to be frog
and a reformat, but - it's been fixed with a format here.  Tnx all.

Peter
PERTH - WESTERN AUSTRALIA
Remove the NOWHERE from reply address

I've heard of this problem before about foreign languages on boot up but
cannot for the life of me remember what did it. Try flashing Bios and see if
the problem is resolved. Life would be so easy if we all spoke the same
lingo.
DD