What's happening here?!

[stevo1210]

Hello Everyone,

I just got a replacement Gigabyte GA-8i848P-G motherboard and my floppy drive light stays on continuously?! The floppy drive is detected in windows but it wont read any disks. Did I install something wrongly again?

Thanks.

[Per Hansson]

Re: What's happening here?!

You inserted the floppy cable upside down

[gdement]

Re: What's happening here?!

Unfortunately, you may have ruined every disk you put into it. Don't try any more until it's fixed.

[stevo1210]

Re: What's happening here?!

You inserted the floppy cable upside down

Thanks Per Hansson, it seems that you are correct. It looks like rushing a computer installation is not the way to go. Luckily I didn't destroy my motherboard, Floppy drive or any disks that were inserted into the drive.

After I flipped the cable around, my PC reads my floppy disks correctly.

Thanks.

[pentium]

Re: What's happening here?!

I have done this many times to my computers. usually I am halted at the bios with a floppy error or no POST. NEVER EVER do this to a dimension 4100.
their drives are biult to fit the font panel son the drives are really hard to find replacements for. I reversed the ribbon cable and the drive gve a pop, fizzle and shut down hard.

[shadow]

Re: What's happening here?!

Hmm I have done this too. I thought that most floppy cables are keyed these days . Although this did not stop me from putting it in upside down since I do not have any new floppy drives. Most of my floppy drives are not keyed, and many of my cables are not keyed either. The common rule to follow is that the stripe down any IDE or floppy cable faces closest to the power connector (this stripe represents the first wire that corresponds to pin 1 on any plug).

[Topcat]

Re: What's happening here?!

I'd be lying if I said I never did that either.... When that light doens't go out, you know what to do...

[Rainbow]

Re: What's happening here?!

Sometimes, the cable is not reversed but plugged off-by-1-pin.

[pentium]

Re: What's happening here?!

I thought that most floppy cables are keyed these days

I have seen drives with no keys, keys on both sides and even silkscreening that marks pin 1 on THE WRONG SIDE.
It makes me miss 5 1/4" drives, you can't possibly screw up connecting them unless you try really hard.

[stretch0069]

Re: What's happening here?!

And ya know....i never had problems reading the old 5.25" disks......now 3.5", thats another story.

[daRk_Kon]

Re: What's happening here?!

another possibility, even though the problem is fixed, is that the power supply isnt sending the voltage the drive needs, or the cable is in wrong to either end of the boards/drive.

[Maxxarcade]

Re: What's happening here?!

I've seen drives with the power connector on either side, there seems to be no standard to which side has pin 1. Though the newer drives are a bit better.

I still have my original Teac floppy in my current computer, from back when I had my 286. Before that I had an 8088 IBM PC that only used 360 5 1/4".

I remember paying over $50 for the Teac drive when I bought it, and $45 for a used 40MB Seagate hard drive

[Per Hansson]

Re: What's happening here?!

Yea, with floppies there seems to be no standard as to which side the red stripe vs power lead goes

But I've never seen a harddrive not follow that standard...

[willawake]

Re: What's happening here?!

i installed one recently where i had to break a tab in the pcb to put the floppy cable connector in the right way around.

I dont understand why the floppy drives with 7in1 card reader need the floppy cable at all...why doesnt it all work usb.

[Rainbow]

Re: What's happening here?!

I dont understand why the floppy drives with 7in1 card reader need the floppy cable at all...why doesnt it all work usb.

For compatibility.

[willawake]

Re: What's happening here?!

you could work in an RMA department

[bgavin]

Re: What's happening here?!

One big reason is the F6 Driver Function when installing a fresh version of Windows.

Uncle Bill's installer does not recognize USB floppy drives for driver installation. It has to be a Genuine Floppy Drive connected to a Genuine Floppy Drive Controller. USB, flash drives need not apply.

Most of my clients new machines come without a floppy drive, so I bought a nice Sony USB model. It works great in DOS, works great with installed Windows, does not work at all during the F6 drive installation process.

[dood]

Re: What's happening here?!

One big reason is the F6 Driver Function when installing a fresh version of Windows.

Uncle Bill's installer does not recognize USB floppy drives for driver installation. It has to be a Genuine Floppy Drive connected to a Genuine Floppy Drive Controller. USB, flash drives need not apply.

Most of my clients new machines come without a floppy drive, so I bought a nice Sony USB model. It works great in DOS, works great with installed Windows, does not work at all during the F6 drive installation process.

I bought a noname USB floppy from newegg ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16821118001 )... works great with Windows F6 drivers.

[Tom41]

Re: What's happening here?!

I've put a floppy cable on upside down and one pin off before, also IDE cables. With a floppy drive, if you put the cable on wrong it actually corrupts any disk that's put in there. Why is this? Is the head putting out a constant magnetic field and erasing track 0?

With IDE hard disks and ATAPI devices, most of the time if the cable's on wrong the PC won't boot. Either you'll get a beep code error from the BIOS, or it'll just stick on a black screen (perhaps with the case HDD light on steady).
Oddly, I've never ruined an HDD by putting the cable on wrong - in theory, it should get corrupted just like the floppy disks do...

[Rainbow]

Re: What's happening here?!

No, you will not corrupt anything on the HDD as IDE interface is completely different than FDC. If you look at FDD connector pinout, you'll see logic signals that directly controls drive operation. IDE connector contains data lines - and commands are transferred through - you need a command to initiate any operation.
Improperly connected IDE cable can cause unbootable PC because the system RESET signal is often connected to RESET signal on the IDE bus. Connecting the cable wrong way may pull the signal to be active.