Fitting a New FDD

Hey guys :P
I recently bought a new Floppy Disk Drive from a car boot sale (bad idea, I know). I fitted it into one of my PCs, with no problem at all, and made completely sure that everything was connected right. I also went into the BIOS settings and changed the "Drive A" to my new FDD and made sure it was on the Boot Device list.
When I turned on my PC, it confirmed that the Floppy Drive had been recognised and installed properly, but when I put I Disk in the drive nothing happened. I went onto My Computer and opened the drive manually but still to no effect. I have tried numerous disks with no joy. The front light on the FDD is on but I guess it could still be faulty.
Does anyone know if it's faulty or have I just missed something out in the installation process?
Thanks very much :)

Welcome to hardwareforums Padfoot369 :beer:

Check list: 2 cables, power and data!

FDD's do tend to die as they get older... and it sounds like you where unfortunate enough to buy a dead drive :( online retailers tend to do very good deals on this sort of hardware! (i managed to get a floppy drive that double as a 6in1 memory card reader for about £10!)

if the light is constantly on then check to see if your ribbon cable is plugged in backwards

StimpE said:

if the light is constantly on then check to see if your ribbon cable is plugged in backwards

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the FDD light being perminently on does indicate the fact that the ribbon cable is the wrong way round, although moden cables have a small notch in them to ensure they are connected the right way round

EDIT: to check, look at the ribbon cable and make sure the red stripe is attached to pin 1 on the mobo & FDD

Yep, I aligned the pink stripe with the "Pin 1" part of the FDD but I'm still having no joy :( . Maybe it is, in fact, faulty and has died.
Thanks for all your help though guys! :P

Padfoot369 said:

Yep, I aligned the pink stripe with the "Pin 1" part of the FDD but I'm still having no joy :( . Maybe it is, in fact, faulty and has died.
Thanks for all your help though guys! :P

Click to expand...

one other thing to check: is the CPU fan spinning at full speed, cos a few year ago the FDD was the only visible sympton, of a dead CPU fan, check that then i think the FDD is probably dead