Hi, Silver.
I was hoping someone would have jumped in by now, but...
My BIOS is also from Award, but there are many variations of that,
customized to fit each mainboard.
On the first or second page of the BIOS settings there should be places to
tell what kind of floppy drive you have (3.5", 5.25", 1.44 MB, etc.). Be
sure those are correct. Also, there often is an option to Enable or Disable
something my BIOS calls "Boot Up Floppy Seek". Without being there to look
over your shoulder as you explore your own BIOS, about all I can suggest is
to read the BIOS manual (most of them are written by someone who does not
speak English natively and are not as helpful as they should be) and look
for something set wrong.
Of course, it could well be a physical problem, not a settings problem. A
Google search for the phrase, "floppy disk(s) fail (40)", turned up over
1,000 hits. MSN Search got over 6,000 hits! Here's the first one, which
suggests a bad cable, improperly connected cable, or a bad floppy drive:
http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000426.htm
But, as I said earlier, it's NOT a Windows problem if it occurs before the
computer even starts loading Windows.
Let us know what you figure out. In a newsgroup, we all learn from each
other.
RC