A drive data cable?

[Boomyal]

When facing the front of the A drive, which side does the red stripe on the cable go on. It looks like the connector will go on in either direction. The hard drive cables have the red stripes on the right.

My A drive did not work. It had the stripe on the left side The lite would not lite when you inserted a disc into the drive. When you clicked on the a drive, to view the contents of the disc, windows said to 'insert a disc in drive A'

 

[Paul Moir]

Re: A drive data cable?

Look at the floppy drive and look for a "2" or a "1" or a little arrow or something. The red stripe should be at that side.

90% of the time, the red stripe should face the power cable going into the floppy drive.

If you screw up and get it backwards - no big deal. The light will light solid on the front of the drive from the time you turn the computer on but it won't do anything (except wreck whatever disc is in it!). If you see that, just power down, flip it over and power back up. No harm done.

 

[Boomyal]

Re: A drive data cable?

In my case Paul, I had no drive lite. The data cable was twisted over so the red stripe was on the side facing the power cable. The cable connector had a male key on the bottom side and there was a notch in the circuit board directly below the female.

I scavanged an old drive from one of the various carcasses stuffed in my son's closet. This one did not have a notch in the circuit board so the only way that the cable connector would slide on the pins was to untwist the cable (male key now facing up and red stripe on the opposite side of the power connector. I still get no drive lite and get the same message when I insert disc and select A drive in windows explore????

I've examined about the drive receptacle and find no numbers of any kind.

 

[Plainsman]

Re: A drive data cable?

If you look at the motherboard and drive, you may see either a 1 or 40. The red stripe goes next to the 1.
As paul said, you can't damage anything by mixing them up. If you don't see a #. there are only 4 ways to connect it. Your bound to get it.
[whisper]
You can call me if you like, 308-641-2327
[/whisper]

 

[Boomyal]

Re: A drive data cable?

Well here is the final solution. It seems like the original A drive was dead. Red stripe immediately opposite the power cable.

The carcass drive is the one that would not accept the data cable in the same orientation. The male key on the data cable kept it from being installed in the same orientation. Sooooooooo, I shaved off the male key so it did not hit the un-notched circuit board below, plugged it in, turned on the computer and voila! The carcass drive now works.

I'da thought there would have been a little more standardisation between cable configs and drive receptacle configs.

All that being said, there were no markings on either A drive connectors that would have given a hint as to which way the cable was to be attached.

EDIT: In the end, I guess the old carcass A drive is a POS as well. Now, even tho the drive lite activates properly, it is giving me the message that "the disc is not Formatted. Do you want to do it now?"

Grrrrrrrrrrrrr!

 

[Xcusme]

Re: A drive data cable?

"I'da thought there would have been a little more standardisation between cable configs and drive receptacle configs."

HA HA HA...fat chance...way back when....(not laughing at you, I just remember days long ago when things were fast and loose)

"All that being said, there were no markings on either A drive connectors that would have given a hint as to which way the cable was to be attached."

You sometimes have to look a bit closer to the PCB (where the pins are soldered into the circuit board). You should see some marking on the PCB at one row end for a triangle or mark, denoting pin #1. Failing that , one row end pin will have a square solder pad (the others will have round pads) , that's pin #1.

I would mark Pin 1 with a felt tipped pen on floppy drives back panel when they are installed just to make things easier. As Paul said, if the floppy drive lite stays on thru the boot, reverse the cable.

 

[Boomyal]

Re: A drive data cable?

See the EDIT on my post above Xcusme. I did look closely at the connector base on the original A drive. There is an arrow, of sorts, on the top of the connector over the outside pin. Is that where the red stripe on the cable is supposed to line up with?

This is getting tiresome. My knees are wearing out bending down on the floor trying to get this stupid low tech POS to work.

Now I will have to take the carcass drive back out and examine the connector. It did work after I flipped the cable back over but now I'm getting the 'need to format' message.

Double Grrrrrrrrr! I thought this was the age of 'plug and play'?

 

[Xcusme]

Re: A drive data cable?

"There is an arrow, of sorts, on the top of the connector over the outside pin. Is that where the red stripe on the cable is supposed to line up with?"

Yup, it should be....

BTW, you did go into your Bios and checked the floppy drive setting for 1.44megs , right? And, as EricKems mentioned, check the other end of the floppy cable, be sure the red stripe is on the MB connector marked "1"

That's Plug and Pray....

 

[Boomyal]

Re: A drive data cable?

"There is an arrow, of sorts, on the top of the connector over the outside pin. Is that where the red stripe on the cable is supposed to line up with?"

Yup, it should be.......

Ok, at the top of the connector, on the motherboard, is a little triangle (arrow) beside the top pin. This is where the red edge if the cable is lined up with. As well, the red edge is on the outside (left as you are facing the computer) of the connector on the A drive. This is where the little elongated triangle is stamped into the top of the female connector.

I turn on the computer and get a solid, uninterupted A drive lite. I will now, once again, reverse the connector at the A drive and see what happens.

I have not yet checked the bios (F9 on boot?) to make sure that the drive is declared 1.44. But unless it changed by itself, this drive used to work. I think it quit working after I disconnected cable to install a second harddrive a while back.

While I have your ear Xcusme, I am going to install a new 80 gb HD on this unit. I have two tiny HD's, the primary one is only 4-5 gb's and it is so full I cannot even defrag.

I will move the current primary drive to the secondary position and retrieve any data later. I will remove the current secondary drive and toss it. I have already copied everything on the secondary drive to my new external USB 2.0 drive.

When I install the new drive, is there anything I should know about reinstalling Win2k? Should I just boot and install the cd? Been a while since I did this.

EDIT: I just reversed the A drive cable, as I mentioned, I got a momentary drive lite while windows was loading, then nothing. I inserted a disc and did not get any lite. I think both of my A drives are shot..???

Whichever way I connect it, I am now getting this message once windows loads;

"the drive or network connection that the shortcut 'Microsoft Office.Ink' refers to is unavailable. Make sure that the disk is properly inserted or the network resource is available then try again."

 

[Xcusme]

Re: A drive data cable?

OK, you mentioned 'I will move the current primary drive to the secondary position'. Just to be sure I know what 'position you're talking about,....you have 2 IDE controller ports.

Primary Master (these are on the MB Primary connector)
Primary Slave

Secondary Master (these are on the MB Secondary Connector)
Secondary Slave

First off, remove the old drive that you've backed up your data on...for the time being. No use getting confused and installing W2K on the wrong drive, or worse yet, risking your data.

Install your new 80gig on the end of the cable connected to the Primary MB connector. Pin the drive as a Master (or single drive). Insert W2K cd and reboot, follow the prompts.

After you're done installing the OS, then , install the old backup HD. You didn't mention how many cdroms you have on your system. The reason I ask, you can have both HD's (old and new) on the same IDE cable, but you'll see better performance if they are on different cables. Leave the new drive as a Primary Master, pin the old HD as a Master and install at the end of the other IDE cable (secondary cable). Make the cdrom the secondary slave.
Since the Primary Master (your new HD) has an IRQ of 14 in the OS, and the Secondary Master (old HD) has an IRQ of 15, you'll get better performance with reads and writes.

 

[Xcusme]

Re: A drive data cable?

Just one last thought about the floppy drive.....is there a plastic connector on the floppy drive around the pins themselves? The reason I ask, many moons ago, I had a floppy that acted , much like yours, and it was driving me nuts. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that I had connected the male cable end to the top row of pins only. It's easy to do. You should also see the floppy in the list of connected devices in the bios screens during bootup, (if you have that detail turned on in the bios) Some bioses don't give you that level of detail on the bootup screens. Some WILL if it's turned on in the bios. Look for a bios entry called Quick Boot option, and turn off quick boot to see the details etc.

 

[Paul Moir]

Re: A drive data cable?

Completely useless post follows. You're in good hands with Xcusme.

What gets me is that outrageously complex and outdated electronic/mechanical device you call a floppy drive costs about $20. Or say $15 to actually make. Cripes, a couple packs of smokes cost more. No wonder they always die!
The cable dates back to the mid 70s. You should be happy you've got some standard at all!

 

[Boomyal]

Re: A drive data cable?

Whew! Here is the deal. I only have one CD on this old antique.(PII, 450 mhz) but it is a good, reliable workhorse. It stays on all the time and never gets too hot to cook itself..

The current config is thus; The primary harddrive in on IDE 1, all by itself. The secondary harddrive is on the first cable connector on IDE 2. The CD is at the end of that cable.

All of my secondary drive data was backed up to an External USB Drive, not to one of the internal drives.

My plan is to simply remove the current IDE2 drive, move the current C drive to the IDE2 cable and install the new one on the IDE1 cable, load Windows, then move any data back to their respective positions.

Dat sound ok?

Also, I just found the source of the message that I posted above. I had knocked the connecter off of the IDE2 HD while I was futzing around with the A drives.

 

[Boomyal]

Re: A drive data cable?

Completely useless post follows. You're in good hands with Xcusme.

What gets me is that outrageously complex and outdated electronic/mechanical device you call a floppy drive costs about $20. Or say $15 to actually make. Cripes, a couple packs of smokes cost more. No wonder they always die!
The cable dates back to the mid 70s. You should be happy you've got some standard at all!

Ok, Ok, I'll cry uncle. I'll buy a new A drive at Frys tommorow. I've about worn out the connectors flipping these two drives back and forth. On both units, if I install the cable one way, I get a constant drive lite. Flip the cable over and I get no lites on either unit.

...and by the way, I quit smoking when you could still buy a carton for 18$. Now I just use Nicoret lozenges. I could buy 4 or 5 A drives for every box of those babies. But I still have my nicotene and hence my sanity.8)

 

[Xcusme]

Re: A drive data cable?

Sounds good, you don't even have to re-pin the old HD when you make the move.
FYI, I've always pinned my HD's as Masters or Slaves manually. I find it easier than using CS (Cable Select).

When you install the W2K, don't have your computer connected to the Web...not yet. I don't know if you're on DSL or a cable modem, but leave that disco'd for the time being (even if you're running a router). It would be nice if you have a cd with SP4 for W2k (or a slipstreamed version) to install before you get any MS updates.

 

[Boomyal]

Re: A drive data cable?

Sounds good, you don't even have to re-pin the old HD when you make the move.
FYI, I've always pinned my HD's as Masters or Slaves manually. I find it easier than using CS (Cable Select).

When you install the W2K, don't have your computer connected to the Web...not yet. I don't know if you're on DSL or a cable modem, but leave that disco'd for the time being (even if you're running a router). It would be nice if you have a cd with SP4 for W2k (or a slipstreamed version) to install before you get any MS updates.

I am on cable, via a router then a switch, so I will disconnect the R45 before I start the OS load. Unfortunately, I think I'll have to use MS update to get service pack 4. I'm sure my CD is too old to have it included. I'll run the updates before I load anything else on. My new PCI USB 2.0 card requires SP4 or else I'd have to load the drivers off of the card CD.

ps, don't know what a 'slipstreamed version' would be??

 

[Xcusme]

Re: A drive data cable?

Slipstreamed version......has the OS with the SP4 included on the same cd....

 

[Boomyal]

Re: A drive data cable?

Slipstreamed version......has the OS with the SP4 included on the same cd....

Got that. Thanks again for all da advice and hep!