Computer freezing after completion of POST

I have an (old) system that is freezing on the configuration display screen where the processor, RAM, IDE settings and IRQ assignments are shown, just before the system should start looking for the bootstrap loader. The odd part is that it displays the Primary Master IDE correctly, then freezes at the Primary Slave IDE where it sometimes displays "NONE" and sometimes displays "NONE NONEZIP" followed by more gibberish, but in both cases the blinking cursor stops there and no further info is filled in. The POST completes successfully and I have full access to CMOS settings. The freeze occurs at the next screen.

What I have done so far:
Verified jumper settings on HDD (IDE 0 Master) and CD-ROM (IDE 1 Master).
Moved HDD to IDE 1 and disabled IDE 0 in CMOS [This caused the freeze to occur at "Primary Master IDE: NONE"].
Swapped HDD with known good on IDE 0.
Added HDD as Primary Slave [This caused the freeze to occur at "Secondary Master IDE: NONE" after correctly identifying Primary Master and Slave].

I don't have a PCI IDE controller card to verify that the onboard IDE controller is bad, but something is definitely screwy. If anyone has any ideas or has come across anything remotely similar, I'd appreciate your insights.

P3 600
128 MB RAM
6 GB HDD
Unknown mobo with Via chipset
Unknown AGP video card
Onboard sound
Win 98

BTW, I just need to be able to boot off a floppy so I can format the HDD and reinstall Windows to use the system as a typing tutor. Because the system freezes before searching for the bootstrap, I can't even do that.

 

If you disconnect the HDD entrirely will it then boot from floppy?

 

Yes, it will. It will also boot from the CD-ROM. But I can't format a disconnected HDD...

I tried playing with the settings for the HDD in the CMOS (it's only 6GB and the auto-detect presents 3 options: CHS, Large, and LBA). No dice, regardless of the settings. And as I posted before, the same thing occurs with a known good 8GB HDD.

 

Sounds like something on your mobo is going bad.