At 02:42 PM 2/3/1998 -0500, Rick Fogel wrote:
>I think i blew it this time. here goes.I bought a floppy drive used at a
>computer show.I am rather stupid so i thought i needed a card to hook to so
>i bought a card marked ide card used. Now i put the card in an isa slot and
>the floppy in a bay. then i hooked the floppy to the card and the power .
>Nothing, so now i realize i do not need the card so took it out and hooked
>this floppy to the ribbon from the A drive. Next i went to the bios and
>enabled B drive .Still nothing but now i realize i can not even read A
>drive. Next i took out the B drive floppy and set it all back to original.
>Still no A drive , it says it is unable to read Adrive. Did i ruin the A
>drive?

Rick:

It is extremely likely that you don't have the floppy ribbon cable
connected properly.

Check that you have the colored edge of the ribbon aligned with the
NUMBER 1 pin of the floppy controller interface and on each of
the drives. The end of the ribbon with the length of straight wires
to the middle connector (B: drive) is the interface end of the ribbon.

Usually, but NOT always, the Number 1 pin on the drive itself is
oriented towards the power connection.

Also confirm that the A: DRIVE is the last drive on the ribbon,
AFTER the twist in the ribbon cable.

Sometimes the pins don't properly align with the female
connectors on the ribbon, so check that, too (i.e., bent pins).
This may be the case if you tried to plug a 40-pin IDE ribbon
into a floppy drive.

You didn't say what computer or drives you have.  Older floppy
drives require a terminating resistor (I doubt this is your
situation). Ancient computers don't have hardware support for
1.44MB or larger drives (requiring software drivers).

Also check to make sure you don't actually have double density
drives when you thought you bought high density drives.

I've seen floppy drives short out if the circuit board underneath
makes contact with the case.

HTH.

John Chin