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Dual foppy disk drive not working correctly

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First post, by lijiaxuan

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I recently picked up a gigabyte socket 370 mobo. I wanted to put two floppy drives inside-a 3.5 inch and a 5.25 inch one. After I set 3.5 inch as A: and 5.25 as B: up in BIOS, I found that the 3.5 inch drive is working fine but the 5.25 inch one is not. A device not ready error always pops out. I then unplugged the 3.5 inch drive and set the 5.25 inch drive to drive A. Then everything worked fine! I then plugged in the 3.5 inch one and set it to drive B. And this time, both drives worked decently. So what may be the reason for the malfunction of dual drives at the beginning? Is there a possible mean to set 3.5 to A: and 5.25 to B: and let everything work fine? Thanks a lot!

Reply 1 of 6, by Horun

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Are you using a proper floppy cable with a twist near the end ?

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. Stuff: https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 2 of 6, by lijiaxuan

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Horun wrote on 2024-01-17, 16:44:

Are you using a proper floppy cable with a twist near the end ?

Yes, I think so

Reply 3 of 6, by Horun

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OK. Check the cable, take a picture and post. Next Check the floppies drives. They should both be set as ID1 if standard floppy cable with twist (if they go ID0 to ID3).
Many 3.5" are ID1 by default (many have no ID jumpers) but most all 5.25" have jumpers could be set to ID0 or ID1, etc.
Really need to know the cable type. Some OEMs used a straight cable (some Compaq come to mind).
Also some drives the ID is numbered 1 thru 4, others 0 thru 3. So you need to tell us what make/model the 5.25" is.
Why they are both set to same ID# is that with the proper cable with twist at the end changes ID to one less for that drive, so if the 3.5" set at ID1 is at end of twist cable it is wired to ID0 or A.
That makes the 5.25 set at ID1 as B if on the straight cable connector part of that twisted end cable. (think of ID0=A, ID1=B)
Does that make any sense ?
Sounds like either the cable is wrong type or the 5.25" ID# is not set proper....
Added: also need to know what motherboard you are working with. Picture of what is considered a universal floppy cable with twist.

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. Stuff: https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 4 of 6, by lijiaxuan

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Sure. My cable looks quite different to yours in the picture. Mine had multiple 34pin and card-edge connectors. I don't exactly know what to use.
p.s: My mobo is a GA-6VXE7+ from Gigabyte which is using a VIA 693A chipset. I also didn't spot any sort of jumper setting on both drives.

Reply 5 of 6, by wierd_w

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The drive after the twist is 'drive A', and the one before the twist is 'Drive B'.

Use EITHER the card edge or IDC34 connector, before or after the twist.

Eg, with 3.5" drive A, and 5.25" drive B, the 3.5" drive will be 'IDC34, after the twist' and 5.25" will be 'card 3dge connector before the twist'.

Reply 6 of 6, by lijiaxuan

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wierd_w wrote on 2024-01-18, 12:23:

The drive after the twist is 'drive A', and the one before the twist is 'Drive B'.

Use EITHER the card edge or IDC34 connector, before or after the twist.

Eg, with 3.5" drive A, and 5.25" drive B, the 3.5" drive will be 'IDC34, after the twist' and 5.25" will be 'card 3dge connector before the twist'.

Thanks for your help! Now everything worked out just fine!

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