Until recently my computer behaved normally when switching on. Now, as the machine starts, the first page appears with the message ‘Floppy disk(s) fail (40)’. At the bottom of the page I am instructed to ‘Press F1 to continue’ and having dutifully pressed F1 the machine loads as normal. How do I get the computer to load without the fail notice? Second thing is when I download updates, particularly from Microsoft, the machine tells me that I have to reboot to get it all to work and asks whether I want to reboot now. When I click ‘Yes’ the machine shows a message that something illegal has happened and the computer will be closed down. After closing down I am never sure if the download has been successful or not as there are numerous occasions when the download has failed. Do you have any idea what the illegal action may be and how do I repair it? The computer ‘gets along alright’ according to a technician who recently replaced a part.

The error message ‘Floppy disk(s) fail (40)’ appears during the computer’s power on self test (POST) which is when the BIOS (the system which configures your computer at the most basic level) polls hardware devices to check they are working. In your case, it is telling us that the floppy drive has failed the POST and is not working correctly. This message can signal a few possible causes. Firstly, does the drive work correctly in Windows? If you can read and write to floppy disks using the drive then there probably isn’t a hardware related issue as, otherwise, the drive would just refuse to work. It is likely that the battery powering your CMOS is going flat (this battery is used to keep system settings and time when your computer is turned off). You should really take your computer to a technician to have the battery replaced. However, if the drive does not work correctly, then the ribbon cable connecting the disk drive to the motherboard could be connected to the drive or motherboard upside down. If the light on the drive stays on as soon as you start the machine, this is generally the cause. However, even if this doesn’t happen, you should check to see if a backwards connection is the problem. The red stripe on the ribbon cable should be going to pin one on the floppy drive and to pin one on the motherboard. You can check this yourself, but make sure that you unplug the computer from the wall and use an anti-static strap (so you don’t zap any components with static electricity). You will hear some technicians advise that you keep the computer plugged into the power outlet (with the power point off) to discharge any static electricity to the ground power plug. However, I prefer to use an anti-static strap as opposed to being accidentally exposed to a live power supply. After this, if the error message still appears on startup, and the floppy drive refuses to read any disks, there is always the possibility that the drive itself is faulty. One of the only ways to know for sure is by putting another drive into the machine. However, if you are not confident in doing this yourself, you should get someone experienced to help (or do it for you).

Regarding your second problem with Windows Update, let’s try to reinstall the Windows Update components in order to get this problem solved. Firstly, clear the Internet Explorer cache. In Internet Explorer, go to the ‘Tools’ menu > ‘Internet Options’ and click the ‘General’ tab. Under ‘Temporary Internet Files’, click the ‘Delete Files’¦’ button and confirm. Then, under ‘History’, click the ‘Clear History’ button and confirm. Close Internet Explorer and go into ‘Windows Explorer’. Delete all the files in the WindowsUpdate directory (found at C:Program FilesWindowsUpdate) except Wuhistv3.log (as this file contains a record of your previous installations). Close Windows Explorer and go to the ‘Start’ menu > ‘Run’ and type ‘regsvr32 /u c:windowssystemwuv3is.dll’ (without the quotes) and click OK. Now we will need to delete this file. Go back into Windows Explorer and go to the ‘Tools’ menu > ‘Folder Options’. Click the ‘View’ menu. In the settings, ensure that ‘Show hidden files and folders’ is enabled and that ‘Hide extensions for known file types’ is unchecked. Click OK. Go into the C:WindowsSystem directory and find and delete the wuv3is.dll file. Now, run WindowsUpdate again and the Update Engine will download all the components.