floppy problem

[gogeeta13]

i'm resurecting a 486 for special purposes and the floppy wont work. it gets a floppy error when it starts. i have tried 4 different floppy ddives and all, nogo. I have fliped the ide cable over because the light would not go out, but that didnt fix the problem. please help i need to pull some OLD workz files up. thanx

 

[BadThad]

Did you check the BIOS to be sure it's enabled and set to the proper type, ie 3.5"?

 

[gogeeta13]

yep all settings are correct. i've built many, many systems and this has never happened. i just dont know what to do. any help would be appreciated.

 

[Diatomic]

You mentioned you tried 4 different drives and flipped the cable around, but have you tried other floppy cables? You probaly already did this, but it is simple enough to overlook.

-Ben

 

[gogeeta13]

tried 2 differnt working cables and still no go.

 

[gogeeta13]

also the himem.sys file is missing for some reason. i need to get the floppy goin so i can copy a new himem to the hdd.

 

[gogeeta13]

Come on, hasnt anybody else ever had this prob.

 

[slatt01]

There are four possible options for floppy cable installation.

If the floppy light is on permenantly then its wired wrong.

Ignore the tabs of the cable as 486s seem not to follow the standards that pentiums have.

Try turning the cable over at both ends, but not obviously at the same time!

One way round will work if the drive is OK, otherwise the board is damaged as you seem to have eliminated other possible causes.

NB not all 486s can take 1.44Mb floppies. Some can only take 720kb? or 360kb 3.5" drives.

 

[emjem]

Dumb question but are you plugging the floppy in behind the twisted cable wire?

 

[gogeeta13]

twisted cable wire? whats that

 

[emjem]

The cable connecting the floppy to the mobo has to have about 6 of the wires reversed edge to edge (twisted). You can't use a straight IDE cable. I don't remember which wires they are but for example pins 20,21,22,23,24,25 on the mobo don't match up with the same pins on the floppy drive. So pin 20 from mobo has to connect to pin 25 on floppy, and mobo pin 21 has to connect to pin 24 on floppy, and so on and so forth.

Suffice to say, you can't use a cable that doesn't have these 6 wires reversed between the mobo and floppy. If you do you get the same symptoms you're describing.