Floppy does not work

  • Thread starter Thread starter Robert Secon
  • Start date Start date
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Robert Secon

On an AMD Athlon I´ve just put out the floppy, after reconnecting the cable
with the drive it gave me an error message. Bought a new cable, connected
with the drive and no more error message since then. But the floppy light is
always on. I´m using Windows 2000, the floppy can´t be found in the
explorer. What is wrong or what can I do?

Thx for ur help
 
On an AMD Athlon I´ve just put out the floppy, after reconnecting the cable
with the drive it gave me an error message. Bought a new cable, connected
with the drive and no more error message since then. But the floppy light is
always on. I´m using Windows 2000, the floppy can´t be found in the
explorer. What is wrong or what can I do?

Thx for ur help
Click to expand...

Unplug cable, rotate 180 degrees, replug
 
Robert Secon said:
light

Just did it before, no connection because light is not on
Click to expand...

How do you mean, no connection because the light is not on... the light only
should light up on drive access.

If its not working with the cable the right way around then you might want
to check the controlor is enabled in the bios and its not set to anything
silly like a 720k drive.

Does windows see the drive and the controlor in device manager and have you
installed the drivers that came with the board?

Cheers

Richard.
 
How do you mean, no connection because the light is not on... the light only
should light up on drive access.
Click to expand...

This is it, no light and no connection in W2K
If its not working with the cable the right way around then you might want
to check the controlor is enabled in the bios and its not set to anything
silly like a 720k drive.
Click to expand...

where can I check the controller in the BIOS?
Does windows see the drive and the controlor in device manager and have you
installed the drivers that came with the board?
Click to expand...

The device manager shows the driver and floppy in the device manager, but it
was W2K was not installed with the floppy drive. Do I have to install W2K
one more time? Isn´t it possible to change it manually?

Thx
Rob
 
Just did it before, no connection because light is not on
Click to expand...

Forget about Windows for the time being.

Find a bootable floppy, throw it in the drive, and see if it'll boot.
This will reduce the number of variable to check one thing at a time.

When the system is turned on, POSTs, the light should not be on.
Perhaps you know this but it helps to be clear regardless.
The floppy light should stay off, unless you have the BIOS boot order
set to try the floppy before the hard drive, else the floppy light
goes on a for a couple seconds before the BIOS moves to the HDD to
boot.

The light always being on from the moment the system is turned on, is
almost always a reversed cable. There are two ends, are both ends'
plugs keyed with a notch? If there is no notch, the side with the two
grooves in it, should be facing the motherboard socket-side with the
notch cut out. On the floppy drive end of the cable, the plug notch
(or grooves) should be facing down. On some floppies you might have
to break out a perforation area on the circuit board to get a notched
cable to fit... they may have a notch on the opposite, up-facing
side, but that doesn't mean the plug should go in that way... it's not
a common situation but not all that rare either.


If you turn the floppy drive over, the bottom may have Pin 1 marked in
some way if not numbered. That should match up with the side of the
cable with the stripe on it... of course this assumes the cable was
properly constructed, if all else fails remove the cable and verify
that the plugs are oriented correctly, that pin 1 on the plugs
(usually a small arrow molded on the side of the plug) matches up with
the same conductor on both ends.

After you get the drive working to boot that floppy, THEN see what
windows does with it.


Dave
 
Forget about Windows for the time being.

Find a bootable floppy, throw it in the drive, and see if it'll boot.
This will reduce the number of variable to check one thing at a time.

When the system is turned on, POSTs, the light should not be on.
Perhaps you know this but it helps to be clear regardless.
The floppy light should stay off, unless you have the BIOS boot order
set to try the floppy before the hard drive, else the floppy light
goes on a for a couple seconds before the BIOS moves to the HDD to
boot.
Click to expand...

This is right, the light was always on, the boot order was A,C,CD-Rom but it
did not find the floppy although there had been a disc inside the floppy.
The light always being on from the moment the system is turned on, is
almost always a reversed cable. There are two ends, are both ends'
plugs keyed with a notch? If there is no notch, the side with the two
grooves in it, should be facing the motherboard socket-side with the
notch cut out. On the floppy drive end of the cable, the plug notch
(or grooves) should be facing down. On some floppies you might have
to break out a perforation area on the circuit board to get a notched
cable to fit... they may have a notch on the opposite, up-facing
side, but that doesn't mean the plug should go in that way... it's not
a common situation but not all that rare either.
Click to expand...

I will prove this.
If you turn the floppy drive over, the bottom may have Pin 1 marked in
some way if not numbered. That should match up with the side of the
cable with the stripe on it... of course this assumes the cable was
properly constructed, if all else fails remove the cable and verify
that the plugs are oriented correctly, that pin 1 on the plugs
(usually a small arrow molded on the side of the plug) matches up with
the same conductor on both ends.

After you get the drive working to boot that floppy, THEN see what
windows does with it.


Dave
Click to expand...

The best you could do for me, Dave. Thanks, you will get to know what
happened as soon as possible.
 
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