I recently picked up two floppy drives at $5 each, and installed them
both into my computer, replacing the single floppy drive it had.

Now, I'm having a very curious problem: the drives seek on boot, and
show up properly, but whenever I try to use one of them, with any disk,
I get a 'drive not ready' error message.

The cables are not plugged in upside-down, and I did change the
configuration in the BIOS setup.

I should be very glad if someone could help me. Thanks in advance.

--
Robert Chippendale

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Robert Chippendale <rchipp@sdf.org> wrote:

I recently picked up two floppy drives at $5 each, and installed them
both into my computer, replacing the single floppy drive it had.

Now, I'm having a very curious problem: the drives seek on boot, and
show up properly, but whenever I try to use one of them, with any disk,
I get a 'drive not ready' error message.

The cables are not plugged in upside-down, and I did change the
configuration in the BIOS setup.

I should be very glad if someone could help me. Thanks in advance.

Do the drives work when connected individually?

IIRC some tweak was required to distinguish drive A from drive B.
At one point it was flipping over a few strands of ribbon cable at
the connector. Maybe something different now....when I messed with
stuff like that floppies were 5.25 inches wide.

Good luck, hth

bob prohaska

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Lynn McGuire wrote:

On 1/25/2025 2:32 AM, Robert Chippendale wrote:

I recently picked up two floppy drives at $5 each, and installed them
both into my computer, replacing the single floppy drive it had.

Now, I'm having a very curious problem: the drives seek on boot, and
show up properly, but whenever I try to use one of them, with any
disk, I get a 'drive not ready' error message.

The cables are not plugged in upside-down, and I did change the
configuration in the BIOS setup.

I should be very glad if someone could help me. Thanks in advance.

5.25 inch or 3.5 inch ?

Do you have a floppy connection cable with the twisted cable for the
second drive ?

Lynn

Thanks for replying. They are both 3.5 inch drives, and I do have a
cable with a twist in it.

--
R. Chippendale

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Sun, 26 Jan 2025 17:14:43 +1100, Robert Chippendale
<rchipp@sdf.org> wrote:

Lynn McGuire wrote:

On 1/25/2025 2:32 AM, Robert Chippendale wrote:

I recently picked up two floppy drives at $5 each, and installed them
both into my computer, replacing the single floppy drive it had.

Now, I'm having a very curious problem: the drives seek on boot, and
show up properly, but whenever I try to use one of them, with any
disk, I get a 'drive not ready' error message.

The cables are not plugged in upside-down, and I did change the
configuration in the BIOS setup.

I should be very glad if someone could help me. Thanks in advance.

5.25 inch or 3.5 inch ?

Do you have a floppy connection cable with the twisted cable for the
second drive ?

Lynn

Thanks for replying. They are both 3.5 inch drives, and I do have a
cable with a twist in it.

Memory is hazy, but I seem to recall some drives had a master/slave
jumper that if set properly would work on a cable without the twist,
but if not set, then required the twist (or vice-versa--it's been a
long time). My memory also thinks the drive at the end of the cable
was the master and the one inthe middle was the slave, but again, my
memory on this shouldn't be trusted!

Good luck1
--Bob

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

Robert Chippendale <rchipp@sdf.org> wrote:

I recently picked up two floppy drives at $5 each, and installed them
both into my computer, replacing the single floppy drive it had.

Now, I'm having a very curious problem: the drives seek on boot, and
show up properly, but whenever I try to use one of them, with any disk,
I get a 'drive not ready' error message.

The cables are not plugged in upside-down, and I did change the
configuration in the BIOS setup.

I should be very glad if someone could help me. Thanks in advance.

Do the drives work when connected individually?

IIRC some tweak was required to distinguish drive A from drive B.
At one point it was flipping over a few strands of ribbon cable at
the connector. Maybe something different now....when I messed with
stuff like that floppies were 5.25 inches wide.

Good luck, hth

bob prohaska

Thanks for replying. I shall check this the next time I have occasion to
open the machine.

--
R. Chippendale

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

I recently picked up two floppy drives at $5 each, and installed them
both into my computer, replacing the single floppy drive it had.

Now, I'm having a very curious problem: the drives seek on boot

Do they seek one at a time, or both together?
[should be one at a time: A then B]

Is the twist for 10-16? https://superuser.com/questions/849079/what-is-the-little-twist-in-this-floppy-ribbon-cable-for

If the twist is conductors 25 through 29 then it's a hard drive (St506/mfm) cable
https://allpinouts.org/pinouts/connectors/data_storage/st506-412-mfm-rll/
--

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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