K7S5A MoBo & Floppy drive

  • Thread starter Thread starter harsha godavari
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harsha godavari

I have a K7S5A mother board which seems to have a "dead" floppy drive
controller. The drive works in another computer(using the same cable).If I
reverse the cable, the floppy drive light comes on & stays on.

However if the cable were installed properly, there is no response from the
drive. Even though "floppy seek" at boot is enabled, drive light does not come
on.If I try to access the drive, the response is "drive not accassible. The
device is not ready".

I believe the onboard controller is not working. Is this repairable or should I
be looking for some sort of a floppy controller from a 3rd party? Is such a
thing available?

Thanks for your help
hg.
 
harsha godavari said:
I have a K7S5A mother board which seems to have a "dead" floppy drive
controller. The drive works in another computer(using the same cable).If I
reverse the cable, the floppy drive light comes on & stays on.

However if the cable were installed properly, there is no response from
the
drive. Even though "floppy seek" at boot is enabled, drive light does not
come
on.If I try to access the drive, the response is "drive not accassible.
The
device is not ready".

I believe the onboard controller is not working. Is this repairable or
should I
be looking for some sort of a floppy controller from a 3rd party? Is such
a
thing available?
Click to expand...
Check in the BIOS how the floppy is configured.
(sometimes you have choices).
Or one alternative is a USB floppy drive.
 
harsha said:
I have a K7S5A mother board which seems to have a "dead" floppy drive
controller. The drive works in another computer(using the same cable).If I
reverse the cable, the floppy drive light comes on & stays on.

However if the cable were installed properly, there is no response from the
drive. Even though "floppy seek" at boot is enabled, drive light does not come
on.If I try to access the drive, the response is "drive not accassible. The
device is not ready".

I believe the onboard controller is not working. Is this repairable or should I
be looking for some sort of a floppy controller from a 3rd party? Is such a
thing available?

Thanks for your help
hg.
Click to expand...
You might want to consider setting your CMOS setup at Default values.
This should enable your floppy disk drive properly.
 
meerkat said:
Check in the BIOS how the floppy is configured.
(sometimes you have choices).
Or one alternative is a USB floppy drive.
Click to expand...

Floppy drive enabled in the BIOS. I wonder if I can boot from a USB device. not
sure.

Thank you.
hg.
 
Ken said:
You might want to consider setting your CMOS setup at Default values.
This should enable your floppy disk drive properly.
Click to expand...

Afraid that had no effect. Drive is still inaccessable. BTW FD was enabled in
the bios.

hg
 
[email protected] said:
I have a K7S5A mother board which seems to have a "dead" floppy drive
controller. The drive works in another computer(using the same cable).If I
reverse the cable, the floppy drive light comes on & stays on.

However if the cable were installed properly, there is no response from the
drive. Even though "floppy seek" at boot is enabled, drive light does not come
on.If I try to access the drive, the response is "drive not accassible. The
device is not ready".

I believe the onboard controller is not working. Is this repairable or should I
be looking for some sort of a floppy controller from a 3rd party? Is such a
thing available?

Thanks for your help
hg.
Click to expand...

Have you tried accessing the drive from startup?

Also, I take it this is in a machine you're just putting together and
that it hasn't just started to happen. Either way, have you tried
unplugging all other devices that aren't essential (eg cd drives, other
non O/S HDs etc) just to see if enough power is getting to the floppy.
 
Peter said:
Have you tried accessing the drive from startup?

Also, I take it this is in a machine you're just putting together and
that it hasn't just started to happen. Either way, have you tried
unplugging all other devices that aren't essential (eg cd drives, other
non O/S HDs etc) just to see if enough power is getting to the floppy.
Click to expand...

I picked up a k7s5a a couple of years ago. It worked fine the first year.
Then suddenly the hard drive was inaccesible. Repartitioning and formatting
the drive got it back running, although I ran the disk utility diagnostics
from the manufacturer and it checked out OK. Still I put another drive into
the ecs k7s5a. That lasted one month and I was back with an incaccesible
drive. I dumped the board and replaced it with a msi that has given no
trouble for the past two years. Since then I've read of other folks who
don't hold that particular board in very high esteem themselves.
 
Jan said:
I picked up a k7s5a a couple of years ago. It worked fine the first year.
Then suddenly the hard drive was inaccesible. Repartitioning and formatting
the drive got it back running, although I ran the disk utility diagnostics
from the manufacturer and it checked out OK. Still I put another drive into
the ecs k7s5a. That lasted one month and I was back with an incaccesible
drive. I dumped the board and replaced it with a msi that has given no
trouble for the past two years. Since then I've read of other folks who
don't hold that particular board in very high esteem themselves.

--
Jan Alter
(e-mail address removed)
or
(e-mail address removed)12.pa.us
Click to expand...


This was given to me for free, so I have not lost any cash outlay but it is
frustrating and waste of time. I guess I better look for a sustitute. Thanks.

hg.

Peter: Iam getting a new PS in a couple of days.I will test your suggestion of
unplugging everything but thr floppy drive and see what happens. I do believe
power is getting to the drive otherthings like the HD work ok...
 
I have a K7S5A mother board which seems to have a "dead" floppy drive
controller. The drive works in another computer(using the same cable).If
I reverse the cable, the floppy drive light comes on & stays on.

However if the cable were installed properly, there is no response from
the drive. Even though "floppy seek" at boot is enabled, drive light
does not come on.If I try to access the drive, the response is "drive
not accassible. The device is not ready".

I believe the onboard controller is not working. Is this repairable or
should I be looking for some sort of a floppy controller from a 3rd
party? Is such a thing available?

Thanks for your help
hg.
Click to expand...

Honestly, I disconnected my floppy drives with CD-RW and USB don't need
them.

Writing from my K7S5A that's been working for years now. Early versions
had problems but I lucked out.

Lots of work for a floppy drive. Reset CMOS (disconnect power, move
jumper4 from pins 2-3 to pins 1-2 for 2-3 sec.), set bios to default
settings.

Check cable again red (or colored) stripe goes to pin 1 on floppy and to
pin 1 on motherboard. Make sure there's no dust or bent pins.

You might want to check the bios version if someone installed an
incorrect bios versions for your K7S5A version.
 
harsha said:
I have a K7S5A mother board which seems to have a "dead" floppy drive
controller. The drive works in another computer(using the same cable).If I
reverse the cable, the floppy drive light comes on & stays on.

However if the cable were installed properly, there is no response from the
drive. Even though "floppy seek" at boot is enabled, drive light does not come
on.If I try to access the drive, the response is "drive not accassible. The
device is not ready".

I believe the onboard controller is not working. Is this repairable or should I
be looking for some sort of a floppy controller from a 3rd party? Is such a
thing available?

Thanks for your help
hg.
Click to expand...
 
harsha said:
I have a K7S5A mother board which seems to have a "dead" floppy drive
controller. The drive works in another computer(using the same cable).If I
reverse the cable, the floppy drive light comes on & stays on.

However if the cable were installed properly, there is no response from the
drive. Even though "floppy seek" at boot is enabled, drive light does not come
on.If I try to access the drive, the response is "drive not accassible. The
device is not ready".
Click to expand...

If you can boot into true DOS mode (not DOS box), run Anadisk, an
ancient DOS-based floppy disk analyzer that talks directly to the
controller and bypasses the BIOS. It should be available under the
names ANAD204 or ANAD207, and the floppy drive works with it, the
problem is not the controller or drive. The controller isn't
repairable since it's built into the south bridge chip.
 
If you can boot into true DOS mode (not DOS box), run Anadisk, an
ancient DOS-based floppy disk analyzer that talks directly to the
controller and bypasses the BIOS. It should be available under the
names ANAD204 or ANAD207, and the floppy drive works with it, the
problem is not the controller or drive. The controller isn't
repairable since it's built into the south bridge chip.
Click to expand...

Yes I can (and often do) use DOS & several DOS utilities. I have used Anadisk
before and have a copy of it around on a floppy disk :-) As a matter of fact I
have several floppies with DOS software which I want to save. That is the reason
for installing a floppy disk drive. Right now if I want to run Anadisk, I have
to get it on a CDRom or do HD swap.

Thanks for the idea.I will try it later.

hg.
 
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