Floppy Drive is DOA

[DeadSeaSquirrels]

For some reason my floppy drive is just dead. It was running fine, and then all of a sudden one day the floppy drive just stopped working, the head won't even move, no light comes on, etc. So I sent it back to the company I bought it from, since it was only a month or so since I got it. Now I have a new drive.

lo-and-behold, same stuff. What is up? Does anybody know any reason why a floppy drive would just stop working...I mean the light doesn't come on or anything. The computer recognizes a floppy drive (but that isn't much to have a drive letter assigned). I also set the Bios to floppy seek and bootup, and the computer apparently can't find the floppy either? Does anybody have any ideas what this might be?

 

[gibbsman]

If you can't boot to the floppy and the bios doesn't recognize it, it could be as simple as a bad floppy cable, or short in the floppy power cable. It could even be as bad as the floppy controller on the motherboard going out.

 

[mattbta]

Had the same thing yesterday. Got inside it and took a look. Double checked the floppy cables to have good solid connection and then switched the lead from the PSU. All fixed.

 

[CubicZirconia]

I think you are saying that the pc assigned it a drive letter, in which case this wouldn't apply. But, if you happen to remove the floppy cable during the course of some work and then fail to put it back on the correct way, it will say "floppy drive fail" when you boot up. This can make some people think the floppy drive isn't working at all.

 

[odog]

<< the head won't even move, no light comes on, etc. >>



sounds powerish to me, the cable backwards usually lights the LED....

have you tried a different power connector.

 

[DeadSeaSquirrels]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I haven't tried another power connector yet, but I will tomorrow.

Another weird thing that kind of made the troubleshooting a little difficult. I have another computer, same Abit KT-7 board, but with a 600mhz processor (the one in question is 1.3Ghz). And the floppy on that machine died at the exact same time that this one died too. So at first I was thinking, Y2k bug =P, or some other weird thing. At the very least I was sure it had to be a bad floppy.

So the bad floppy controller, thought possible, i think may not be, just because it is so weird to think two floppy controllers going out at the exact same time (or roughly). I'll try switching power connectors though. If it works, I'll let everybody know.