Floppy drive problem

[shredisn@tdead]

Just built a new PC - all OK except floppy not being found at boot.

Have tried reseating the FDD cable (its a brand new one that came with the mobo, Epox 4PDA2+), tried the mid & end connectors on the FDD, but nowt. The FDD light is on all the time. Its showing a 1.44mb fdd when I enter the BIOS but complains at boot.

I'm sure I've had this before on another box but resolved it somehow. Any ideas? Maybe the cable is duff?

[da_ging]

turn the cable over so the red line is on the left side of the floppy, opposite of ide drives

[shredisn@tdead]

Was going to try that but the key doesn't seem to let me do it - it'd be facing the bottom edge of the drive and there's no 'hole' for the key blob...

Left side of floppy - when looking at the rear end I guess? Will try and force it in, but will have to take the drive out to do that

[Agent]

How olds the floppy cable ?
Some of the older ones dont have a "notch" in on the motherboard end of the cable, so you might be able to change this one if its wrong.

[da_ging]

should just say that the end that goes into the floppy has a twisted bit in the cable

[XTR]

Originally posted by shredisn@tdead


Have tried reseating the FDD cable (its a brand new one that came with the mobo, Epox 4PDA2+), tried the mid & end connectors on the FDD, but nowt. The FDD light is on all the time. Its showing a 1.44mb fdd when I enter the BIOS but complains at boot.

Maybe the cable is duff?

Originally posted by Agent
How olds the floppy cable ?

I would try a different cable Worth a try.... trial and error/improvement.

[Platinum]

Light always on always seems to be that the cable is the wrong way round, as suggested try a different cable, the floppy cable that came with my Abit IC7 Max 3 mobo was duff.

[shredisn@tdead]

Dug out an old floppy cable - had slot connectors on it too - 5.25" drives?! - that didn't have the key on it.

Put it in red line to the left and problem solved!

Sliced the key off the new floppy cable and used that as the old one is too long and has too many connectors plus I'll need it for future reference

Thx for the help

But what's up with that? Has someone decided to start producing floppy drives with the key-hole on the wrong side (mine's an Alps), or did they decide to switch and just not tell the cable manufacturers?!

[directhex]

Alps (iirc) floppy drives have the key scored out on the PCB but not actually punched out, so the obvious solution involved putting the cable on upside down, poking the pcb with a screwdriver si the usual solution.

[shredisn@tdead]

Aha, good to know, cheers.
The floppy was already mounted in the case - couldn't be ars*d to take it out and it's pretty dark in there esp once you're hands start getting in the way, maybe a Trek-like wrist mounted torch would come in handy...