Floppy Drives

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Floppy Drives

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Info The floppy drive is one of the easiest parts of the computer to work with. Considering other components in your system, there isn't much to know about floppy drives. Nonetheless, they are very important to the operation of a complete computer, so I set aside this section of the site just for them. Everyone has one, even if they always use a ZIP drive, or even a Super LS-120 120MB floppy drive
	The Basics Floppy Drives are the little things on the front of your computer that you stick the disks in and copy files to or install programs off of. There are two kinds. The old ones are 5-1/4's. These drives are big and ugly. They accept the big 5-1/4" disks. You know, the bendable ones. And the disks don't hold that much either. Today, we laugh at a computer that still has one of these things. Today, almost all computers have 3.5" drives. These drives accept diskettes, little 3.5" disks. These diskettes come in different densities. The old ones are single-density. They only hold 720K of data. The standard disks of today are called high-density. They usually hold 1.44MB of data. The newest disks are called extended-capacity and they hold 2.88MB. Other than this stuff, there's not too much more to know about them. One thing that is important: before a diskette can be used, it must be formatted. This prepares the disk so that the drive can use it. To do this, at the DOS prompt ( the C:/ thing you get on a blank DOS screen) type "format a:". That's "format", space, then a:. This will do it for you. In Windows, it is in the menus in the File Manager or Windows Explorer. When it asks for a label, it wants to know what you want to call the disk. Just type something, or leave it blank, it doesn't matter. Some notes: You can't use a high-density disk in a low-density drive. Sorry. I didn't make it up. Also, when formatting, make sure you type "a:". Do not type any other drive, especially C:, otherwise you're in for trouble. Floppies are always a: . It is b: only if you have a second floppy drive. Also, disks can go bad. If you get lots of errors with a particular diskette, trash it. It only costs a few cents to make a diskette, so they are low quality storage.
Drive Config. Floppy drives are bought off the shelf already configured for your computer. But, sometimes, if you are installing a used drive, you may need to reconfigure it. For this reason, and informational purposes, I will discuss a little about their configuration. A note though: in order to properly configure a floppy drive, you need its manual. Unlike hard drives, the jumpers are not marked and there are no common names. Drive Select All floppy drives are attached in a daisy chain arrangement within the PC. This means that there is one cable leading from drive to drive. Therefore, like a SCSI daisy chain, each drive must have an ID number. Some older drives allow four choices ID's, because the SA-400 floppy interface can support four. But, modern PC floppy controllers can only support two floppy drives in a chain, therefore most modern floppy drives only have two choices. The drive you want to be Drive A: is set to the first drive select position. Drive B: is set to the second position. The jumper that controls this is usually called the DS jumper, and the options are labeled DS0 and DS1. The numbers themselves may vary from drive to drive. The good thing is, though, that when installing floppy drives, for the most part, we don't have to worry about this. Most drives are factory set to DS2, or Drive B: position. In order to use the drive as a drive A:, you use a floppy ribbon cable that tricks the computer into using the drive as A:. This is done with the use of a special twist in the cable that electrically changes the DS configuration of the drive after the twist. This twist, then, causes the controller to think the drive configured as B: is really configured as A:. For this reason, during installation of a floppy drive, always make sure your Drive A: is located AFTER the twist on the floppy ribbon cable. If you are trying to use a non-standard floppy cable without a twist, you'll have to change the DS jumper to DS1, or the Drive A: setting. Termination Like a SCSI chain, a floppy drive daisy chain must be terminated at one end. Older 5.25" drives used a terminating resistor in the drive itself that was plugged into the end of the cable. This terminator absorbed all signals, preventing reflections and echoes from going back down the line and disturbing new oncoming data. When connecting two of these 5.25" drives on the same chain, the drive at the end of the cable would have a terminating resistor installed. Then, the resistors in the other drives on the chain would have to be removed. With 3.5" drives, the termination is automatic. All 3.5" drives have a pre-installed, non-configurable terminating resistor. With 3.5" drives, each drive shares the role of termination. If you have only one drive on the chain, it terminates itself. When installing 5.25" and 3.5" drives on the same chain, you should remove the termination on the 5.25" unless it is at the end of the ribbon cable. The terminating resistor looks like a 16-pin memory DIP chip. It is almost always a different color than the other chips on the drive: sometimes white, orange, blue, etc.. Sometimes, the chip is soldered on. In this case, you must either enable or disable the resistor with a jumper. The best way to ID your resistor is to look at the drive's manual, if you happen to have one for it. As far as termination on the controller end, this is built in to the controller. Don't worry about it. Media Sensor Just a quick mention... 3.5" 1.44M or 2.88M drives are equipped with media sensor (MS) jumper. This jumper enables or disables the media sensor in these drives. On many of these drives, it is factory set to enabled. Sometimes, it is stuck in enabled mode. In short, this media sensor gives the drive the ability to sense what type of disk is inserted into it and thus adapt the read/write heads to work accordingly.
	Installing A Floppy Drive Removing Floppy Drives Turn the computer off, take the case off, and remove any diskettes from the drive. Locate the disk drive. This should be pretty easy for most of us. Now go about disconnecting the drive. Remove the screws that fasten the drive to the support casing, then unplug the power source from the back of the drive. Also remove the ribbon cable. As you do all this, keep track of what goes where so that you can put it all back correctly. If you had a 3.5" drive in a 5.25" drive bay, you may have to remove some brackets too. You are now ready to install a new floppy drive. Skip down to this section to see how. If you do not plan on replacing the one you took out, go on to step 5. You now need to cover up the drive bay with a plastic panel. You may already have one that fits the drive bay, but if not you can pick one up at a retail computer shop. Next you need to remove the drive from the system's BIOS so that it doesn't think its really there. Enter Setup, choose the first option, called "Standard CMOS" or something like that. Then, in the section on the floppy drive you removed, change the option to NONE or DISABLED. Save and Exit. Installing a Floppy Drive Choose which drive bay you want to install the drive and remove the face plate off of that bay. Save the face plate for future use. Pick a bay that will fit the drive. If you have to install a 3.5" drive in a 5.25" bay, you'll have to use a special front panel to adapt it. This panel usually comes with a new floppy drive. Fit the drive into the bay without connecting anything. Just make sure it fits. Choose the best possible fit. Connect the ribbon cable and the power supply to the drive. If you just removed a floppy drive, just use the same connections. If not, study the available connectors. You should have a ribbon cable with a twist on one end. The end without the twist is attached to the floppy controller. Then, attach the connector after the twist to floppy drive A:. If you have only one floppy drive, then it is Drive A:. You may have two available connectors after the twist. Use the one that fits your drive. One is for 5.25" drives, the other is for 3.5" drives. If you are using brackets to hold the drive in place, secure them now. You may need to temporarily disconnect the cables. Once in, tighten the drive in place. Double-check the connections, also checking the connections for other drives to make sure you didn't bump one out of place. Now put everything back together. Plug the system in. And turn it on. If the floppy drive light goes on and stays on, this means that one of the connectors of the ribbon cable are on backwards, meaning Pin 1's are not aligned. Find which is not aligned and flip it. If you get a Floppy Drive Fail (40) error, it probably means the same thing...either that or the system is looking for a drive which is not there, in which case move on to step 6 and adjust the BIOS settings. Now you have to tell the computer that it has another drive. This involves updating the BIOS. Boot the computer and enter setup. This is done by pressing F1, Del, Ctrl-Alt-Esc, or some other combination. Your computer will tell you what keys to hit right after you turn it on. After entering setup, go to the Standard Setup, usually the first menu option. Your main floppy drive is A: . Any second floppy drive is labeled B:. Using the appropriate keys, activate your new drive. You may need to type in the specs for the new drive. Most likely, it is a 1.44MB drive. Lastly, under another menu option, you might need to make sure your BIOS drive swapping is turned off. This feature, through BIOS, reverses the order of your floppy drive letters so that their location in relation to the ribbon twist does not matter. But, if you installed a drive after the twist, and this option is enabled, your Drive A: will not work. To deactivate a drive you have removed, follow the same instructions, but change the status of the drive to "None" or "Not installed." If you have removed the primary floppy drive, you'll need to change the Boot Order to "C: Only" and disable Floppy Drive Seek. When you are done adjusting BIOS, save the new setup, then exit Setup. Your system should now restart and your drive will be activated. You can test it in the Explorer or File Manager by checking a diskette.