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Floppy Disk Fail (40)


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#1
CompLost

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Hey, I searched and found all the posts about this issue, but I'm confused about one thing. My floppy drive was working fine until I decided to change my power cabling to accomodate a new powered video card. Now I am getting that error message but everything else seems to be working just fine.

Are there a max number of devices that can be used at once? I'll check and see if I knocked something loose, but I don't think thats the issue.

When I do to hardware properties in my computer, it says the device is working. When I insert a disk, nothing happens. If I try to double click the drive, it says insert a disk.

EDIT:

Ok, I fixed the problem. I plugged a small power cable into it. What I don't understand is that it wasn't plugged in prior to my changing the power cables... and it worked. Do floppy drives work without power cables? If not, I'm not sure it it worked before because all I had was IDE cables in it.

Edited by CompLost, 28 September 2007 - 11:30 AM.

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#2
pip22

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The floppy drive needs power to it in order to work, and the only means of getting power to it is from one of the little white molex power connectors on the wiring loom. It must have been connected before or it simply wouldn't have worked.

As regards Windows telling you "this device is working properly" when it clearly isn't, that just shows how "dumb" Windows can be at times. Windows only uses the data cable to assess whether or not the device is working properly. It pays no attention to the power status of the device. That's clever isn't it?

Edited by pip22, 28 September 2007 - 02:37 PM.

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#3
Neil Jones

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Device Manager is a red herring on many occasions. It claims everything is working properly even when its blatantly obvious that it isn't. :)
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#4
uesquebeathus

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the cable can be connected the wrong way around, the red wire in the molex connection must be adjacent to the broad ide red marked side, in some floppy units the ide marked edge is at the exdtreme edge of the ide plug, which means that the small molex connection red wire should be at the furthest edge/side of the floppy back

or
Always make sure to line up pin 1 of each floppy connector with pin 1 of the motherboard, by attaching the cable so that the red wire on one edge of the ribbon cable connects to pin 1 of each device. On some drives it can be hard to figure out which end of the header is pin 1, which is why I recommend that you examine the drive before physically installing it.
Many 3.5" floppy drives today are not keyed to prevent upside down connection of the floppy drive cable. This means that it is possible to connect the cable upside-down, and then of course the drive will not work. In most cases this will not cause permanent damage. If when you boot up the PC the floppy drive activity LED comes on and stays on, this is a dead giveaway that you have done this. Reverse the connector.

Double-Check Connections: Check over the connections you just made to ensure that they are correct. Make sure you haven't accidentally knocked anything others loose.
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#5
fran a would be geek

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I've got plenty of power.Wish that was it, appreciate the input.

Thanks
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