Mystery of a non-working floppy A-drive

Posted by Redwebec@reddit | vintagecomputing | View on Reddit | 14 comments

My techie can't figure this out, so I thought I'd ask. He's installing a 3.5" floppy drive in a vintage Optiplex. Except he can't get it to read. He's tried two different computers, two different floppy disks, and several A-drives. Nothing works. They apparently aren't even opening the disks. This just seems bizarre to me. Can you think of something he's missing?

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14 Comments

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Redwebec@reddit (OP)

Can't believe this. Here's the sequel. He started to think the problem was with the floppies. I spent hours making the round trip to give him a brand-new floppy. Still doesn't work. I called my neighborhood tech who shrugged that sometimes you just can't get old systems to read each other, even though they should. Keep in mind that I originally told the guy I was looking for something with USB ports and a floppy drive, he said something like, I have something. I think that in reality he was thinking, Oh, I can be a nice guy and install a floppy drive. So, after wasting all this time - and money - is there any place to go to start over and look for a computer that has both? Preferably not Ebay/Amazon?

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ThrownAwayLasVegan@reddit

Did you try hitting it?

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zPacKRat@reddit

We only did that to old TV's and Xbox 360s (to open the DVD drive)

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Redwebec@reddit (OP)

It worked very well on IBM Selectric typewriters. It would occasionally freeze, and I figured out a particular way to hit it that always worked.

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zPacKRat@reddit

Learned to type on those in Jr High.

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Redwebec@reddit (OP)

I still own one. :)

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Redwebec@reddit (OP)

That is so funny! Because when I talked to them yesterday, I said, "Gee, I can't think of anything else ... Have you tried hitting it with a stick?"

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Redwebec@reddit (OP)

To Soylent Caffeine & Glen Canyon: Thank you so much! Since you were so kind to post in detail, I'm sending your suggestions on to the tech.

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Nukulartec@reddit

just a wild guess … as your information is not to detailed. did you configure the floppy in bios?

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Redwebec@reddit (OP)

My information isn't detailed because I'm an ignoramus. Everything you lovely people are saying is over my head. So I'm copying the specific suggestions and will pass them on to the tech. With my thanks!

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glencanyon@reddit

1. Make sure that the floppy cable has a twist between the B drive connector and the A drive connector (The end of the cable). A straight floppy cable will not work. The A drive is the last drive on the cable beyond the twist in the cable. 2. Double check power to the floppy drive is good. 3.5" drives only need +5 and Ground working, but if your +5 rail is bad, then they won't spin up. Test the voltage of the power connector with a volt meter. Make sure you're getting 5 volts. 3. If it's spinning, but not reading, then you may need to clean the head. 4. If the floppy cable is on backwards, then it will not work. Make sure the cable stripe (the color stip on the cable) is aligned to pin 1 on the floppy drive and motherboard. 5. In the BIOS there are a few places to check. On the basic settings, make sure that floppy drive A is a 1.44MB drive. In the Advanced tab, there sometimes is a floppy controller enable/disable switch. Make sure your floppy controller is enabled. On some BIOS you can swap drive A and B. If this exists, make sure that it is disabled (no drive swapping).

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ThersATypo@reddit

We're they setup as secondary drives before?

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dirtmcgurk@reddit

Is he formatting the disks on the drive he's trying to read from it with? Maybe some formatting difference?

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Soylent_Caffeine@reddit

Classic beige era optiplex machines are very sensitive to dead CMOS. If the battery is good then check the BIOS, is the floppy drive present and set to the proper capacity drive? Try a different cable and ensure it isn't upside down in either end. Pin-1 to pin-1. Move the floppy drive to the top of the boot list so the computer doesn't move on to CDrom or HDD boot.