Floppy Drives
Attaching floppy diskette drives are done in a similar manner to hard drives. See the picture below for an example of a floppy cable. Most of the current floppy drives on the market require that the cable be installed with the colored stripe positioned next to the power connector. In most cases, there will be a key pin on the cable which will force a proper connection of the cable.
Attach first floppy drive (drive A:) to the end of the cable with the twist in it. Drive B: is usually connected to the next possible connector on the cable (the second or third connector after you install Drive A:).
Below are some symptoms of incorrectly installed floppy drives. Though they are minor and installing them incorrectly doesn’t cause severe problems, it may cause your system to freeze or crash when trying to read and/or write to diskettes.
Symptoms of incorrectly installed floppy drives
Usually caused by faulty cables, cables put in backwards or a bad floppy drive or motherboard. Try another floppy drive to verify the
Drive is not automatically detected problem if the cable is properly installed or try replacing the actual cable. Also check to see if the onboard floppy controller is enabled in the BIOS setup.
| Drive Fail message at bootup |
| The cable, floppy drive or |
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| motherboard may be faulty. Try | |
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| another drive or cable to verify. |
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| Drive does not power on |
| Check power cable and cabling. |
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| Maybe a bad power supply or | |
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| drive cable problem. |
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| Usually signifies that the cable on |
| Drive activity light is constantly on |
| the drive is on backwards, which is |
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| a common issue. Reverse the | |
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| cable at the floppy drive end and |
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| try again. |
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