From: "John Pring" :Sent: Monday, May 14, 2001 3:09 PM
Subject: [PCBUILD] Floppy Drive Problem


Hi, me again..... HELP

My A drive isn't working, I've just put a new one in, just in case the old one had died but NOTHING, not even the LED!  I thought I may have put the cable in the wrong way so I turned it up the other and now the LED is on all the time! :(

Can I blow any circuits inside the drive by putting the cable in the wrong way?

I'm running Win98 SE, Windows does see the A drive & because I had a Trojan attack earlier today, I need to backup my work.

Thanks

John P


John,

If the light on the A drive is on all of the time the cable has been put on backwards.  Also make sure that the floppy drive is attached to the cable connector with the twist in the cable.  Usually pin 1, the part of the cable with the red stripe on it, is towards the power supply but I have had one floppy drive where that was reversed.  Also make sure that the cable connected to the motherboard has the red stripe on pin one connected to pin 1 on the motherboard.  Many motherboards have a small 1 on the motherboard to indicate where pin 1 is located.  You shouldn't mix up an IDE connector on the motherboard with a floppy connector on the motherboard, as the floppy connector has 34 pins and the IDE connector has 40 pins.  Reversing the cable on a floppy drive should not hurt the drive.

If you have another computer available, you can check the floppy drive by installing in the other computer.  If it works in the other computer, with all cables connected correctly but does not work in your computer with all cables connected correctly, I would suspect your floppy drive controller on the motherboard has died.  

Mary Wolden

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