[RESOLVED] floppy not working on A7A133 board

[stevejr]

I installed a new floppy for this rig for my daughter...new round cable as well. On boot up it gives me a "floppy disk failure (40)". I Googled and it says either a faulty cable ( nope..tried another known good cable...still no go), a bad drive ( nope...tried it on my own rig and it's good), or a bad I/O connection.

What is this I/O connection...is it the actual connection on the board where you plug in the cable? But that can't be...see following points.

I have checked Bios...floppy seek enabled ( is first on boot order)

Device Manager shows it to be working properly.
I tried both psu floppy pins...no go.
Floppy cable is oriented correctly also

When I needed to flash the Bios a few weeks ago, I used an older floppy that I had and it worked just fine.

I'm stumped on this one...I have tried everything that I know to check.

I can't remember when this disk error first started...but I remember that I saw this even when I had no floppy drive installed...I just ignored it, thinking that it was thinking that I had a drive installed when I really did not...which was weird, but hey...computers can be really weird at times!!

Hopefully there is some little setting or something that I don't know about.

[ralph3124]

In your BIOS, the first page should show Floppy/hard drives. Are they set for the correct pattern? Should be 1.44 meg, 3 1/4 drive.

[stevejr]

ralph...yes...they are set correctly..

I gotta go to work...be back tonite....keep those cards & letters coming!!

[ralph3124]

Another thought:If your ribbon cable has 2 connections, try the other connection. Also, if I recall, they used to have jumpers like the hard drives-don't know if they still do, but try using different jumper settings.

[stevejr]

ralph...the floppy cable is a single cable and it has a notch on the connector ends to keep orientation correct. I went thru the manual again and didn't see anything about any floppy jumpers ( I was hoping that it did...darn..!)

I'm gonna go to device manager and do the 'remove & re-boot' trick...

[stevejr]

well, that didn't work...I removed the floppy drive first...re-booted...same failure (40) ...then I even removed the floppy controller...no help. I switched ends of the cable again...no help. Device mamager shows floppy to be working properly but when I put a floppy in, I get a 'please insert a floppy in drive A'.

I'm gonna take the floppy cable from my own rig and try that.

[stevejr]

Okay...what's going on here. This new Mitsumi floppy drive has a full row of pins on top and the bottom only has two pins at each end...one end has a hole then two pins...the other end has a pin..hole..pin.

The old Panasonic floppy that I did the Bios update with has two rows of pins with the bottom row having the second position from one end a hole.

The board connector has two rows of pins with the bottom row having a hole at position 3 from one end.

What does all of this mean?

[Philgo]

Have you tried using a win98 bootdisk and see if your machine will boot from it.

If you haven't got one get it from here www.bootdisk.com using another computer of course.

[stevejr]

Philgo...the computer boots up and runs great...it's the floppy drive that doesn't work. The light comes on & then off at boot like it should...device manager shows the drive working properly...all of the settings in Bios are set correctly....it just doesn't work when a floppy is put in drive. I have tried lots of floppy's...some with data on them...some that are new. The drive just doesn't recognize that a floppy is in the drive. The floppy drive is working because I hooked it up to my main machine.

Device manager says that the floppy controller is working properly ( can I trust that?)

I'm out of ideas...I read lots of Google results concerning the error and have eliminated all possible reasons that were suggested...except the possibility that the controller really is bad, even if device manager says that it is working properly.

Edit: Could the Bios flash have caused this? I just can't remember the time line as to how soon after the flash this started happening because I un-hooked the old floppy drive after I finished the Bios flash ( I was waiting on the new drive that I was going to order and just didn't need the floppy drive anymore). Okay...info overload here...I'll stop.

That's why I was interested in the different pin arrangements on the different floppy drives...but that doesn't explain why I had the old Panasonic floppy drive working when I flashed the bios and now even that drive doesn't work. I'm gettting power to the drive....it's just not answering!!

[Philgo]

Philgo...the computer boots up and runs great...it's the floppy drive that doesn't work. The light comes on & then off at boot like it should...device manager shows the drive working properly...all of the settings in Bios are set correctly....it just doesn't work when a floppy is put in drive. I have tried lots of floppy's...some with data on them...some that are new. The drive just doesn't recognize that a floppy is in the drive. The floppy drive is working because I hooked it up to my main machine.

I know, but if it boots from a 98 bootdisk (floppy) then you have established that it's Windows and not your hardware. If it doesn't then it's an hardware fault, probably one of three things. The drive itself, it's cable or the motherboard. If it's the later it could be a bios setting or I'm afraid it's the floppy controller gone south and that's not repairable.

Don't concern yourself with the pins on the drive they do vary a bit, not all are required.

[ralph3124]

As PHILGO says, Don't concern yourself with the pins on the drive they do vary a bit, not all are required.
Your BIOS flash COULD be the reason, however, it could also be the controller. Try removing the controller from CONTROL PANEL, then reboot. Windows will find it and re-install it for you (you may need the driver cd or your window$ cd for the drivers.

[stevejr]

I think that the controller must have gone bad. I tried a boot disk...nothing...uninstalled controller from device manager...rebooted, windows reinstalled drivers...device mngr. says controller is working properly....but it ain't.

Win some, lose some...at least I was able to get the Bios updated

So...a controller can go bad and still have device manager indicate that the controller is good?

I know that a lot of new computers don't come with a floppy drive but they can sure come in handy for small data saves, Bios updates ( however rarely done)...etc. I suppose that my daughter would probably have very little need for a floppy....I was just determined to try and get this thing to work!!

Thanks for all of the suggestions...I'll leave this un-resolved for just a little while in case someone comes up with the magic solution!!

[ralph3124]

They do have usb floppies (external) if you really need (or want) a floppy. I have one, but rarely use it. No controllers needed, just plug into usb port.

Just FYI

[stevejr]

Thanks, ralph...that's right..I kinda forgot that...got caught up in fighting with this situation.

I was going to get a multi-card reader for her rig and some of them came with a floppy but I can't remember if the floppy is usb or needs the cable....seems like some of the readers had a usb floppy but I may be mistaken; I'll just have to look closely at them again.

Okay...I'm gonna call this resolved ( under 'Protest'...!!!)