Well, as for the long story, trust me I know - but I couldn't write a shorter one if I wanted to describe the problem in detail. Anyway, as for the booting externaly, I must admit I didn't try it, since I lost the cable somewhere, but I'll give it a try for sure. Though, I'm not really optimistic, since everything so far indicates that the comp keeps detecting floppy even when I disable it in bios and remove it from the bay. As for the OS, I don't know what to think. I formated the hdd. ****...I'm affraid that the controler is messed up, or something more indepth...