I installed and configured the bios for a 1.2MB 5.25" Disk Drive . The jumpers are unchanged from when I took 2 identical drives from a computer . There is a jumper on the LG , D1 and DC straps . When I put a 5.25" floppy disk in the drive and turn the handle the drive makes quite a loud clacking noise and the noise will only stop after I release the handle and pull the floppy disk out . Is this enough information to point to the problem ?
tia

giddayhello

Are you familiar with those drives? The slit in the slide connector is closest to the #1 pin side of the connection. The red-striped edge of the ribbon cable indicates the #1 pin side. The connection at the end of the cable (after the 7-wire twist) is for the a: drive and the one before the twist is for a b: drive. And you're putting the disk in correctly?

Was the drive working before you removed and reinstalled it? Does your OS see the drive OK?

I have never used a 5.25" drive before .
The connector to the drive fits one way and is on correctly . The twisted end of the cable is on a 3.5" floppy drive and the connector next to it is on the 5.25" drive and there is an unconnected 3.5" floppy drive connector between the 5.25" drive connector and the motherboard cable connector . I set the Bios so A drive is the 3.5" floppy drive and B drive is the 5.25" drive which correspond to your cable connector instruction . There are three jumpers in the factory setting positions on the 5.25" drive ; LG , D1 and DC . The green light lights up , XP sees a 5.25" drive and I tried a 5.25" floppy disk both ways , but the drive only makes the clacking noise with the label up on the floppy disk .
thanks for your reply

hello

The manual I found names the model number but not the exact part number of the two drives I have . There are five strap settings at shipment (are they supposed to be jumpered , I can't tell) listed in the manual but there are only three straps jumpered on drives . The strap explanations are quite difficult for me to make sense of , but I'm trying to wade my way through them .

hello

I forgot to mention the Floppy Disk Fail message on bootup but I pressed F1 to continue . I checked the connections and they seem ok so now i think maybe the drive needs more jumpers , I haven't yet understood all the meanings of the jumpers , or the drive is bad .
bl***y time waster !

hello

It sounds like you've got it connected right. Post back the model of the drive. It's possible it's a 360 K drive. Both the 1.2 meg and 360 K drives looked alike. That would account for the bios message.

I'd have to look around to see if I still have any info on those. I think the D1 is a drive select. Generally for those drives there were four, going from D0 to D3 or D1 to D4. When using the twisted cable you'd want the jumper in the second position--either D1 or D2 depending on if they start at D0 or D1. I think LG is a chassis ground and I'm not sure about DC. All that's off the top of my head and I'd have to check further to make sure.

But post back the model first and we'll go from there.

Let me make sure--the drives should be connected this way:

Motherboard--5.25 drive--7-wire twist--3.5 drive.

The twist must be between the 2 drives. Otherwise the bios won't be able to differentiate between them. When using a 7-wire twist cable both drives are set to the second drive select. The twist is what allows the bios to see them as separate drives. Without the twist, the 3.5 would must be at the first DS position and the 5.25 at the second DS position.

This may be clearer:

. . .Without the twist, the 3.5 must be jumpered at the first DS position and the 5.25 at the second DS position.

the twist end is connected to a 3.5" floppy drive and the next connection is the 5.25" floppy drive then there is another 3.5" floppy drive connector then the motherboard connector . TEAC ; Model Number is :FD-55GFR , and the part number is : N930400628 , which is different to all the part numbers I could see on the pdf. document I found .

I just sent a .pdf page that shows the default jumpers.

Make sure the twist is between the two drives.

daveincaps , I received your email with pdf but I had laptop hard drive in my computer and had just got onto the internet to update and your email arrived . The Outlook Express version on the hard drive was a 128bit encryption version and that may have been the reason but OE deleted the pdf file as dangerous . I dunno , I'm 2 years into computing , so that was just my guess as to what happened . You can forward the file again if you have it because I have my usual hard drive in the computer now .
I tried a cable with the twist in the middle and configured the bios for both A or B drive and for each type of floppy drive the bios could offer but got the same result each time , Floppy Disk Fail message .
I looked at the underside of the drive and the gold lines from the drive connection to the drives inner look broken up , very . So that seems to be the problem . I'd still like to look at the jumper settings please .

hello

OK I resent it. If it gets blocked again I can zip it and then send it.