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floppy drive Not Ready

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First post, by ratfink

Posted on 2009-09-16, 18:25

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I have built a 486 machine, it uses a board with an Opti chipset, 3 ISA slots, 3 VLB slots and an 8 bit slot. Seems to be a QDI board according to stason.org. I've used a hard drive from another machine, which has dos on it. It boots into PC DOS 5.02 from the hard disk. I have 3.5" and 5.25" floppy drives. All drives are attached via a VLB interface card.

I want to copy a 3.5 disk to 5.25. Copying appears to have ruined the 3.5 disk but luckily i copied to the c: drive.

I have some apparently unused DS/DD 5.25 floppies. Two boxes from independent sources. Each one gives me a Not Ready error when I try to format it.

The 5.25 drive worked last time I used it a few months ago. The floppies are superficially in excellent unused condition. I have tried different bios settings and different cable positions - ie. 5.25 as a: or b:.

Any ideas?

Reply 1 of 4, by prophase_j

Posted on 2009-09-16, 18:40

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I remember that sometimes when I would install a floppy drive, the data cable connector wouldn't be keyed. I would follow the next convention of orientating the the data cable so that it's red stripe would face towards the the power connector. I ran into a few drives where this would actually be the reverse of the way it was supposed to work, and as such the drive wouldn't function, and also sometimes I would see the disk activity light constantly lit. Thankfully I don't seem to recall any time this damaged the drive or controller, as it would work once I fixed it.

So, bottom line, make sure the data cable isn't backwards.

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Reply 2 of 4, by h-a-l-9000

Posted on 2009-09-16, 18:55

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It damages the disk though, if any was inserted in the drive.

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Reply 3 of 4, by ratfink

Posted on 2009-09-16, 19:04

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The 5.25 drive's connector is keyed and so is the cable, so that shouldn't be the issue. In fact the same is true of the 3.5 connectors.

I've had exactly that problem with other pc's though.

Reply 4 of 4, by ratfink

Posted on 2009-09-19, 16:12

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Problem solved. A 3-wire ribbon cable on the top face of the drive had worked loose from its sockets. Seems to just push in, nothing to tighten or lock, but the drive works.

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