Err !!!!!! Floppy's! 1

[artty]

Floppy dirve drive me nuts!
We ordered 13 computers from compaq and one of them has a floppy that is having problems first it would not let you access it, then I fixed that it was pluged in backwards ( the light wouldn't go off ) now it says the floppy has no mask id and I can look at the properties and it says for the file system - "raw".

 

[garebo]

Go into bios and see if the floppy drive is enabled. There may even be more than one setting to properly enable the floppy drive.


Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[wolluf]

buy a new floppy drive? - they're only a few pounds here in uk.

 

[J741]

If the floppy diskette drive's data cable was attached backwards, and a floppy diskette was inserted, then the floppy diskette will have been damaged, and will no longer be useable. Try a different diskette.

- James.

My memory is not as good as it should be, and neither is my memory.

I have forgotten more than I can remember

 

[wolluf]

J741 - that's just NOT true. It just won't read the diskette - green light is on all the time, but I've never seen one damaged (I used to be prone to attaching cable wrong way round - as its usually other way compared to IDE, and so have done thjis many times).

 

[garebo]

I have never seen a floppy disk ruined in this manner and i have never heard of that happening either, so i wouldnt buy that theory either. If the cable is on upside down the floppy just wont read. You can ruin a floppy drive by plugging it in one pin over, by accident. Or by letting the pcboard of the floppy swing free and hit something metal, but thats about it.


Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[J741]

O.K. I hear the argument, and I had nothing to back up my statement other than more than 10 years of hardware troubleshooting experience. So I did a quick google search and found this statement:

"A backwards ribbon cable can cause a 3 1/2" drive to eat the FAT (File Allocation Table) table on a floppy, so system disks become non-bootable."
on this website:

http://www.daileyint.com/hmdpc/trouble.htm

But whatever the truth may be (I am only going by experience), the resulting suggestion is to test the drive using a completely different floppy diskette to further isolate the true source of the problem.

- James.


My memory is not as good as it should be, and neither is my memory.

I have forgotten more than I can remember

 

[garebo]

The only thing is that you say the floppy will not be re-usable but i would imagine if you format the disk it will work again.


Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[artty]

J741--- you were right The cable was attached backwards and it did ruin the disk, the floppy would not format on any computer.




Thank ya all...

 

[diogenes10]

I just had this issue and had two different operating system boot floppies in the drive while it was cabled backwards and they both still work fine.

I didn't think to observe the position of the red stripe when I pulled the cable. When putting it back together I looked at the cable and it had a key on it and there was a keyslot on the top of the floppy connector so I did not think there would be a problem. After 5 or 10 minutes of consternation and two boot floppies later I discovered that this particular floppy drive has key slots on both the top and the bottom of the connector. ???? So I turned the cable over and the drive and floppies all worked fine.



-------------------------------------
It's 10 O'Clock ( somewhere! ).
Are your registry and data backed up?

 

[micker377]

That's why all my "Bootdisks" have the write protection tab set. Yes, I am clumsy enough to plug the cable in upside down!