how to connect floppy drive ?

[lordsmurf]

I have some floppy cables that are black plastic on both ends, gray ribbon, and no tabs on the black plastic. I don't know which end is which, nor which side goes up.

Is there an easy way to tell?

I hate these cables. Modern blue ended cables with notches and tabs make this a lot easier than it used to be. But these older cables are all I've got to work with.

[mikel]

On the connector, check to see if there is a small triangle that marks the equivalent
of pin 1.

[lordsmurf]

I see a triangle on one side, on each end
One side also has "C" written on one side on one end.

So which end is up, which side goes where?

BTW, I've already pulled the computer apart twice now, and nothing is right. For all I know the drive or cables are crap, but until I can at least know I'm connecting it correctly, I'm running in circles.

[pchan]

If there is a red stripe on one side... that's for pin 1. At the mobo end.. you can locate pin 1 by looking for No. 1 and the same goes for the floppy drive. If there is not red stripe, you just have to make sure pin1 match to pin1.

[lordsmurf]

Okay, that will help for the motherboard.

I don't know about the floppy, I'll have to take it out and look.

Does it make a difference on which side goes where? I thought it did, but it's been years since I had to deal with something like this, I plain forgot.

[bevills1]

On all floppy drives I've seen the side of the cable with red stripe is connected such that red stripe is nearest the power cable connection. Many floppy cables have a notch on connectors and will connect only 1 way, but some don't. It won't hurt anything if this connection is wrong, but you'll simply get an error message in which case you need to reverse the connection. Also the cable should have 2 drive connections, one with all flat ribbon and the other with some crossed over wires in the ribbon. You want to connect crossed over wires connection for A drive or all flat wires connection for B drive.

[redwudz]

On the MB, they will generally have the cable sticking out of the same side of the connector as the IDE connectors. Some floppy drives have the connector backwards and if there is a tab, you have to cut it off.

The good news is it doesn't hurt anything to have them backwards. I've done that many times with floppy's with no locating tabs. The sign that the cable is backwards is that the floppy light will be on all the time, and of course, it won't work. Just power down and reverse it and you should be fine. If I remember right, if you have a floppy cable with more than one drive connector, use the middle one for drive A. If that doesn't work, try the end one.

[handyguy]

If you put it on backwards, your floppy light stays on.....

Really, for any drive, the red line side goes near the power connector. A floppy drive cable has a twist on it sometimes. Plus to top it off most of them have a drive select jumper that must be set.

[lordsmurf]

Yeah, I remembered the light thing. Learned that ones ages ago.

Turns out I forgot to plug in the power cable. DOH!

And then I got the light always on. I turned it off and switched it. Still not done yet, work on it later tonight. The quest continues...

[Doramius]

The Mobo, is your primary concern. If that is attached properly, then you're good to flip around the cable on the floppy drive. Those things are pretty tough.

[lordsmurf]

I gave up. I opened up another computer, and stole it's floppy drive and modern cable temporarily.

That worked.

Only needed a floppy drive long enough to upgrade the motherboard's BIOS. With that out of the way, really see no need to use floppy again. I'm just going to leave the old one in there from now on, unplugged.

[redwudz]

I've got a USB powered floppy drive that came with my laptop. It boots up first just like an internal floppy and I've used it quite a few times when I need to load a file from a floppy. I don't install floppys any more in the computers I build, so it comes in handy at times.

[overloaded_ide]

Ya, Floppies are dead.
UNTILL you need one

I just installed a new Maxtor drive in the wifes system, I wanted to run Maxblast to reformat and copy everything from the old drive to the new drive, needed a floppy. Piss on it, I used Ghost instead. Too much trouble tearing the floppy out of my main box and installing in hers just to install a hard drive.
Drive was already formatted cuase I was using it a few days in my box, but i wanted to woipe it out when I put it in hers, ghost did it good enough, not really much on it.

How does a USB Floppy work, it that still A: ? I have stuff that will only write to A: as a default setting and cannot change it. Really stupid they do things like that in todays world.

Floppies are hard to kill through user error, most of mine have just died from sitting I think.
Red stripe goes to pin 1 one system board connector. If you have 2 connetors close together on one end that's the end that goes to the drives
If it's a single drive cable It may not matter which end is which, if it has crossed over wires on one end put that on the drive. Been awhile since I used a single drive cable for anything.

Not sure about a comment that was made about the red stripe always being towards the power connector though. Too many various was things have been made. I had a floppy tape drive that was backwards but it was long ago. Think I had a floppy like that also.

Cable on upside down normally the drive light just stays on all the time for a floppy drive.
I don't recomend it, but I have hot swapped floppies before also with no problem.

[Doramius]

Heck, I'm practically giving floppy drives away. People give me their old computers and I build them new ones. Sometimes I'll get 3 old PCs, That barely run at 133MHz, from one person. I'll use one of the floppies in the new system and keep the rest rather than chuck them in the garbage. I also find people leave old PCs around dumpsters now and then. I'll snatch it up and scrap it down. I find some really good parts and sometimes sell them on eBay. But I always get tons of floppies.

[budz]

I'll use one of the floppies in the new system and keep the rest rather than chuck them in the garbage. I also find people leave old PCs around dumpsters now and then. I'll snatch it up and scrap it down.

Hey! I do the same thing! I pick up old pc's I see lying around a dumpster or if the government is getting rid of old pc's inventory I take those home too. I strip them and take the floppy drives and ram out. I then use them to built new pc's.

[bevills1]

The old floppy cable could be bad. I've had 2 IDE cables go bad. Suggest trying same drive with known good cable. If the drive works with good cable, then old cable was bad. If it still doesn't work with good cable, then the drive is bad.

[Doramius]

I'll use one of the floppies in the new system and keep the rest rather than chuck them in the garbage. I also find people leave old PCs around dumpsters now and then. I'll snatch it up and scrap it down.

Hey! I do the same thing! I pick up old pc's I see lying around a dumpster or if the government is getting rid of old pc's inventory I take those home too. I strip them and take the floppy drives and ram out. I then use them to built new pc's.

What's more is I take the jumpers, screws, risers, etc. and sort them. When I get too many of a certain kind I sell them on eBay. $2 for 100 jumpers, or $1 for 50 Mobo screws.

[handyguy]

"$2 for 100 jumpers, or $1 for 50 Mobo screws. "

You actually spend the time counting those?

[Doramius]

I have little tubes I put the screws in. I count and sort them as I take them off the old unit. I also check the thread, length and other info. people are gonna want to know when I list them on eBay.

[redwudz]

overloaded_ide said:

How does a USB Floppy work, it that still A: ? I have stuff that will only write to A: as a default setting and cannot change it. Really stupid they do things like that in todays world.

This one I have shows as A:. I just plugged it into a computer that has a A: drive and then it shows up as B:. It seems to work on all the MBs I've tried it on. It's powered by the USB port. I've wondered if there is a program out there to emulate Drive A: with a USB thumbdrive? Then I would just use one of those.

The USB Floppy drive is a Mitsumi D353FUE. I got it from HP free with the laptop.

[thevoelk]

Redwudz,

I use an HP program at work that makes a thumb drive bootable and detected as a floppy emulated drive. I use it for imaging standalone machines that cannot have network connectivity for whatever reason. Works great, it's called HPUSBFormatter. If I remember correctly, HP has it buried on their site. It was, at the time, free for download, but I'm not sure about it now. Just for laughs, a coworker and I installed Windows 98 to the floppy one time and ran it on a laptop. Worked until we pulled the flash drive out.

[lacywest]

I keep ... PowerQuest PartitionMagic 8.0 ... around for formating HDs ... and I have several USB 2.0 enclosures for HDs.

http://www.xpcgear.com/enclosures.html

http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=312100&pfp=cat3 [same one]

Here is the link to the ones I have been getting lately ...

http://www.coolerguys.com/840556020950.html [same one]

The Spire GigaPod II Hard Drive Enclosure 3.5 inch USB 2.0 SP120-NEB ... this is the one I have about 5 connected at same time to my Dell 5150 Laptop. Some are the other model from CompUSA. Same unit ... just a different name stenciled on the side.

I leave them open with the top half off ... and just swap HDs from one to another.

As for a floppy drive ... Staples sells one that is USB ... and doesn't use an outside power supply and I use it with my Laptop ... just plugs into my USB connection on the back of my Dell 5150 ... which I've had for 2 years now and has not died ... yet.

[Doramius]

Redwudz,

I use an HP program at work that makes a thumb drive bootable and detected as a floppy emulated drive. I use it for imaging standalone machines that cannot have network connectivity for whatever reason. Works great, it's called HPUSBFormatter. If I remember correctly, HP has it buried on their site. It was, at the time, free for download, but I'm not sure about it now. Just for laughs, a coworker and I installed Windows 98 to the floppy one time and ran it on a laptop. Worked until we pulled the flash drive out.

If it's buried, a link would help. :P