My floppy drive seems to have stopped working? Does anyone have any
ideas what could be wrong with it or how to fix it....Thanks in
advance for any help...
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There's not much fixable with floppies. First, make sure all the cables
are plugged in tight on both ends. Second, verify that your BIOS is set
to recognize the floppy. It shouldn't have changed by itself, but one
never knows... Try another drive (and also a new cable) and hope that
fixes the problem. If it doesn't, you may have a bad controller chip.
Most recent mobos have the controller on the motherboard, but older ones
may have a separate card with the controller. You can tell by where the
ribbon cable plugs in. If it's on the mobo, you are basically hosed,
but if it's on a separate card, try another one.
Also, (not sure this is really a good idea), if the problem turns out to
be on the motherboard, you may be able to disable the mobo controller in
the BIOS and install a separate controller card. I did this once with
an onboard sound chip that failed and it worked ok. I am a little
nervous about having a known bad part sitting there on the mobo,
however. Risky business.
