Floppy drive won't work

cleared the cmos and made sure that its been recognized correctly?

"Alan Meyer" wrote in message ...

"Ralph Mowery" wrote in message
...

Have you tried the Floppy cable the other way round on this drive?
Maybe it does not have standard i/o - worth a try.

James,

Is that really safe? I don't know the pinouts on the floppy cables, but
I'm
leery of turning it around. I've never heard of anything like that.
Have
you
done it? Did it make a failed floppy work? Did it make a working
floppy
fail? Did it have no effect?

Do not reverse the smaller power connector. If the data connector is
reversed and is wrong the light on the floppy will stay on. OUtside of
maybe some bent pins it will not cause any harm to the drive or computer.
Some cables did not have a hole for a pin near the middle of the
connector.

I decided not to try reversing the cables. The data cable that came with
the drive
has two floppy connectors and one motherboard connector. The two floppy
connectors are wired differently in that four of the wires in the ribbon
cable are
reversed for the end connector but not for the one in the middle of the
cable.

I did try connecting to the middle connector but the results were the same.
The light on the floppy goes on for a few seconds, but Windows reports
Drive not ready.

I've sent an email to MSI in hopes that they can tell me what's going on
and/or
recommend a drive that they know works. Failing that, I may try either a
NEC
(which is what my old Dell drive was that worked in this machine) or a TEAC,
as recommended by the previous poster.

Thanks to all for the advice.

I decided not to try reversing the cables. The data cable that came with
the drive
has two floppy connectors and one motherboard connector. The two floppy
connectors are wired differently in that four of the wires in the ribbon
cable are
reversed for the end connector but not for the one in the middle of the
cable.

I did try connecting to the middle connector but the results were the
same.
The light on the floppy goes on for a few seconds, but Windows reports
Drive not ready.

If the light comes on and then goes off after a few seconds the data cable
is connected correctly. The reason that the cable you have has 2 connectors
is that the very end one is for the A drive and the middle one is for the B
drive if several wires in the cable are twisted between the drive
connectors. Years ago drives had jumpers on them to designate them as A or
B drives. Then it was discovered that all drives couls be set the same if
several wires were twisted between the cables.

Hi Alan!

"Alan Meyer" wrote in message
...
I have a new computer with an MSI K7N2G-L motherboard
(Nvidia NForce2 chipset) and an Athlon XP 2600+ CPU.
I installed a brand new Samsung floppy disk drive ordered
from newegg, but it didn't work. I shifted the floppy to my
old Dell Dimension T700 and it worked there. I then put
the old Dell floppy in the new case and tested with the MSI
motherboard. That worked fine. But, using the same cables, the
Samsung would not work. Windows XP reports a timeout. Linux
(Redhat 9.0) reports a whole slew of errors.

I thought maybe some timing on the drive was just slightly off and
sent it back to newegg, who sent me another one (same Samsung
model but different serial number - so it's a different physical drive.)
But that won't work either. It gets the same errors.

I have no problem tossing the drive. It only cost $7.00, but I don't
want to order another one unless I have some hope of it working.

Yes, yes, I know I can get along without a floppy. But it is a
convenience. I'd like to get it working if I can.

Has anyone got any ideas here - either to make the Samsung work
or to recommend a floppy known to work with this motherboard?

Thanks.

Is the green Led on the floppy drive lit all the time?

If so, you have the floppy flat ribbon connected backwards. Reverse it.
Light should only be on when you are reading or writing to a floppy disk.