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Help, Floppy Not Working

Q

Questi4110

Senior member
I just took out a floppy drive from my old computer and connected it using an IDE cable to my new computer. However, when i turn on the computer, the floppy does not work. When i go to windows explorer, the drive is not seen. But when i click on add new hardware it is found and there seems to be no conflicts with it. Also, the light on the floppy is always on and when there is a disk in the drive it tries to read it but it just makes a clicking noise. The bottom of the floppy does spin when it tries to read though.

This must mean that the IDE cable is not properly hooked up i guess? I put the part that looks like it is ripped into the floppy drive connector making sure that i kept the red ribbon on the left side when looking at the back of the drive. Could there be a problem in the connection with the motherboard. I see that the connector on the motherboard is missing two adjacent pins and i count 18 rows instead of the 17 that there are supposed to be.

Please Help



THANKS
 
If the light stays on, that means that the cable is incorrectly connected. Try switching around the cables until the light goes off. Had me a little confused there when you wrote "connected it using and IDE cable". You can't do that! 🙂😉 Hope this helps.
 
Yeah, light always on means upside down cable. If it helps, Pin 1 (the one with the colored stripe) generally faces toward the power connector on the floppy drive.
 
I tried switching the wires in all different combinations. The light does go off in some combos but in those cases (along with the other ones where the light is on), when i go into bios, it doesn't detect a floppy drive.

What else could be the problem?


THANKS
 
hmm, i'll see if i can get one


the current cable i am testing with is pretty long with another port in the middle (that is part of the coiling) before the final port which i am using to connect the drive (basically, there is one port on each end and then one in the middle that is wrapped up). SHould i be using the middle one to cut down on the slack?


THANKS
 
Ok, i configured it in bios and it shows up in windows explorer now. The light doesn't come on all the time but when i put a floppy disk in the drive it just makes a clicking noise when i tell it to read it. After a while it stops and comes up with an error saying that the floppy disk doesn't have a valid ID.

What could be the problem?


THANKS
 
NM, i got the drive to work. The problem was a combination of a bad floppy and the fact that the drive was not spinning due to a piece of plastic jamming it.

THANKS for all your help
 
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