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Hi for some reason the floppy drive will not open any disk. I tried using several floppies I had including Old MS setup disks. I even changed the floppy drive itself and reinstalled the controller via control panel. Any clue why this is not working. I checked the cables to make sure that they are connected right and the person that gave this machine to me didn't say that the drive wasn't working.
"The meaning of life is to be happy and useful" Tenzin Gyatso, HH the 14th Dalai Lama
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The drive is seen by windows. I double click onto the drive and there is a long pause and then the little window comes up saying that the drive is not accessable or something and do I want to retry or cancel.
"The meaning of life is to be happy and useful" Tenzin Gyatso, HH the 14th Dalai Lama
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might be worth setting the drive to 1st boot device in bios and booting again with a boot disk in it to see if it'll pick it up. can reinstall the floppy drive by removing it in device manager and rebooting (will pick it up again then)
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Actually it was set as the 1st boot device and I set it back to the 2nd after I installed the 2nd floppy drive. No difference ofcourse.
That is exactly how I installed the 2nd floppy drive by deleting it in device manager and then rebooting."The meaning of life is to be happy and useful" Tenzin Gyatso, HH the 14th Dalai Lama
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OK have some spare cables. Will give that a try.
"The meaning of life is to be happy and useful" Tenzin Gyatso, HH the 14th Dalai Lama
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OK well I didn't have exactly the right cable but I looked around and it seems that things may not be connected to the right things in the right sequence. Not that I know but it looks odd. Usually the cable that the floppy drive is connected to is also connected to the HD or cd drive(sharing) but the cd drive and hd in this case have separate cables that connect to the MB. Same with the floppy drive. I am not sure that this is a change that the former owner did knowing that something is not working right. Since I can never get him on the phone I can't check. I am also not sure that the floppy drive was connected at all before I came along or if I have now got it connected to the right thing on the board. When I went in just now it seemed it was disconnected but maybe I accidentally did that. I just didn't look before wether it was connected to the board as I presumed that it was sharing with another drive. Hope you know what I mean. Maybe I should just leave it as is. The rest of the system is working fine.
"The meaning of life is to be happy and useful" Tenzin Gyatso, HH the 14th Dalai Lama
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Usually the cable that the floppy drive is connected to is also connected to the HD or cd drive(sharing) but the cd drive and hd in this case have separate cables that connect to the MB
The Floppy drive is NEVER on the same cable as the hard drive or CD drive! It uses a different cable entirely. As for the hard drive and cd sharing a cable, they can but don't have to. Most motherboards have 2 IDE ports. Each port can support 1 or 2 devices.
In your situation, if you have tried a 2nd cable with no success, I would assume that the floppy port on the motherboard is bad. I've had that happen once. It was under warrantly so I had it fixed. But, if it was not under warranty I would have let it alone as I almost never use floppys any more.
Michael J
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Oh ok silly me!
OK something is wrong because the 2 IDE ports are taken by the HD and the cd drive so where I thought the floppy drive was connected to is not then! I didn't try another cable. I said that it is the wrong cable that I had spare!
The machine is old so no warranty but since it is not affecting the system right now I will just leave it I guess."The meaning of life is to be happy and useful" Tenzin Gyatso, HH the 14th Dalai Lama
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If the drive was seen by Windows, it was connected to the MOBO.
There is a "twist" in part of the FDD cable. The end closest to the twist is what plugs to the FDD.
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Ok interesting because it is the right cable then(the twist is there) and as you say if it shows in control panel then it is connected right. Must be the cable somehow.
"The meaning of life is to be happy and useful" Tenzin Gyatso, HH the 14th Dalai Lama
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Have you checked in the bios to see what the floppy drive(s) are configured as.
For example:- A: 3.5" 1.44mb
Also check the flat interface cable.
Sometimes one end connector is a different colour to the others. This is the mobo end.Then if the cable has two floppy connectors, from memory I think the middle one is for A: and the end one for B:
Sometimes these connectors are in pairs, in case you have 3.5" and/or 5.25" floppys.
Good Luck - Keep us posted.
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Active (main or booting) floppy drive is farthest down the cable. Always. Always. Bet you have yours on wrong.
You can avoid many of these Windows problems with Linux. Linspire eases the transition for new users
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Mike-Yep bios has the drive listed!
I am not sure what you mean about the cable being a different colour. Everything is the same!
Only one floppy connector. No 5.25 drive(the machine is a P3 maybe).Thanks.
GXI-I dunno what you mean by farthest down? On the board?
"The meaning of life is to be happy and useful" Tenzin Gyatso, HH the 14th Dalai Lama
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Does the computer case cover the floppy drive? IE; is the eject button on the floppy drive hidden and depressed by a button on the case itself?
If it is, does the floppy drive function when it is not mounted in its drive bay?
I had a case that did this, it was actually depressing the button slightly but I meant the disk wasnt in the drive correctly. Same behaviour as you have!
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Yes the computer case does cover the floppy drive.
The floppy drive that is installed at the moment worked in another system.OK I pulled the drive away from the case and it is reading floppies now when in windows. For some strange reason tho when I booted with the floppy disk in the drive it didn't protest which is odd. So what should do I do to correct this problem....Is it just a matter of being more tightly installed in it's position?
"The meaning of life is to be happy and useful" Tenzin Gyatso, HH the 14th Dalai Lama
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You said earlier you changed it to boot from floppy AFTER the hard disk (ie second in boot order). If this is still the case, BIOS won't even check the floppy as it can boot from the hard disk, hence why it didn't complain to you. It will only check the floppy if no preceeding drives are bootable.
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The fixing screws for floppy drives etc are supposed to be short.
IF they are too long (or maybe tightened too much) that may just touch (or distort)something inside that it causes a problem with operation of the unit concerned.
When I install a fdd or hdd etc. I always use all 4 screw fixing holes and do not overtighten. Also make sure the unit not distorted by the screws, but just sits comfortably in its correct location.
Good Luck - Keep us posted.
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Martyn99-I can't remember the drive or boot sequence now. All I know is that it was set wrongly before and now it is set correctly but we have moved past that now as the drive is working. It is just that sitting in it's correct position in the case it doesn't work but attached and out of it's position it does.
Mike-Yep the screws are short and smaller. Not very snug either and I thought that was a bad thing but youv'e confirmed it is supposed to be like that. It is as you have stated and still not working when in position.
"The meaning of life is to be happy and useful" Tenzin Gyatso, HH the 14th Dalai Lama
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