New Floppy Drive Problems

[Shuttlecock1]

Hi,

my old man bought a dell pc, and it didnt have a floppy drive. so he bought the correct one off ebay to fit a dell.
anyhows he puts it in, and follows some instructions that came with it about hitting f2 as the computer starts and changing something in the bios (i think).

after this windows xp (home) starts up. he clicks my computer and the floppy drive (3.4" 1.44) is recognised as A:.
anyhow when he puts a disc in, it says something along the lines of 'cannot read disc - disc not formatted'.
the drive also wont format the disc.

now he isnt dumb (used comps for yrs) the disc isnt write protected. he has drive new discs, blank discs, discs with stuff on. and it wont read anything.

now xp obviously knows the drives there, but why isnt it reading the discs?

any help appreciated.

cheers

shuttle

[roady]

Seems that the data cable isn't correctly placed.....

[Shuttlecock1]

its an internal one so i figured he just attached the cable of the mobo. got any more info as to the placing????

cheers

shuttle

[QWERTY]

Double check both the floppy data and the floppy power cable. Make sure they're not backwards, loose, or have bent pins

Other then a simple installation problem there is also the possiblity that the drive he got off Ebay is just bad.

[PhilEnfield]

When he boots up, does the floppy drive light stay on ?

If so, have a look at the ribbon cable ..... one end of the cable has some twisted conductors (i.e. the ribbon is spliced and the wires are twisted) .... make sure this end is connected to the floppy drive and make sure the cable is fully pushed in. There is normally a small raised lug on the cable connector to stop it from being plugged in wrongly .... make sure this lines up with the socket at both ends.

If no luck, try the drive in another PC to make sure (as QWERTY says) it's not a bad drive.

[Shuttlecock1]

thanks guys. turns out that that the cable wasnt connected right. think it had come out a little one end.

case solved/closed.

cheers

shuttle