floppy question

[T2urtle]

Well i'm having issues making my floppy drive work. I got this off an emachine.

the floppy itself is weird. its missing pins seen here
http://home.comcast.net/~t2urtle/000_0029.jpg


Now i'm having issues with my floopy cable as well. i assume that the cut side is the starting point. in that case the end point has a blocked off pin. Which i have no clue why. because of that it wont fit on my board.
this is what i'm talking about

http://home.comcast.net/~t2urtle/000_0030.jpg

Now i also wanted to know which side is the red line suppose to be on when its connected to the floopy drive and your facing the tower, meaning the buttons for everything are on the right side.


thanks guys

 

[stevty2889]

If the floppy drive came off of an e-machine, the cable might have a propriatary pinning, meaning, it won't go on to a normal motherboard. If you have a standard floppy cable I would try that.

 

[T2urtle]

oh that was the standard floppy cable. I didn't use the emachine floppy cable for that reason. But i'm cheap so i need to re use the floopy drive.

 

[stevty2889]

Well I can never remember which side the red stripe goes on for a floppy drive, so try it one way, and if the light stays on, it's backwards. My cable has a blocked pin in the same location, on the end that goes to your motherboard. If you the connector on your motherboard isn't missing a pin in that spot, you'll have to take the plastic piece out of the cable connector.

 

[T2urtle]

"take off the plastic peice" meaning poke a hole where its blocked off?

 

[stevty2889]

Yeah, pretty much. If you push a sharp pin into it, you might be able to pull it out, like I did.

 

[JimPhelpsMI]

Hi, Push the pin blocker out from the cable side with a blunt object. a paper clip is great for that. The red stripe usually goes to to the side with the power connector. Very seldon does it go the other way. Pin one may be noted on the PC board by the connector. The advice about the light staying on is valid, but don't have a good floppy disk in the drive when you do it. It will wipe the disk out if its wrong. Good Luck, Jim

 

[T2urtle]

thanks guys. i went to the store today looking for floppy cables and i was just going to be a generic rounded one for 4$ but i thought i would check back with you guys. Hey does those missing pins make a big diffrence in my first pic? I heard floppys are 32 pin drive but they only use 24 or so. I'm missing 8 pins on the lower bank every other pin. so it somewhat makes sense

 

[gnumantsc]

I think I have a floppy drive exactly like that. Yes the red pin "points" to where the power goes in or as I say opposite to the ide cable.

Sometimes motherboards and cables might not like each other. I had a IDE cable that I connected to a cdrom and it didn't recognize it but once I put an older cable in it worked fine.

 

[T2urtle]

i tired pushing it thru and it didn;t work. I might just go out and buy that floopy cable