floppy drive light is always on

[budda]

i'm working on a friends computuer that was working just fine when i gave it to her. she gave it back to me because the floppy drive stopped working. i've tried new floppy drives and new cords but the computer still says failure. when i go into setup it says not installed but when i flip the cord over it says that it is installed but the light is always on and it still does not work. the mobo is an Amibios (c) 1992 Amercan Megatrends, Inc. Bios Version 1.00.03cs15. can some one help me please.

[PhillMc]

Chances are that drive is shot or the Floppy channel on her mainboard has a problem -- more than likely it's the first of the two. Luckily, floppy drives are cheap.

It is possible that the drive type (found in BIOS setup) is set to the wrong type, but you said you covered that.

When ever a floppy cable is inserted upside-down, the drive light will remain on -- everytime.

Hope this helps.

[budda]

i've tried 6 different floppy drives and its the same thing with all of them. how do i find out if the Floppy channel on her mainboard has a problem

[PhillMc]

i've tried 6 different floppy drives and its the same thing with all of them. how do i find out if the Floppy channel on her mainboard has a problem


Well, there are several boot utilites out there that are designed to run pretty intensive tests on all aspects of a motherboard, such as those found on Hiren's Boot CD, but the easiest (and most risky) way to figure this one out is to take a floppy drive that you know for a fact is working and hook it up; if it works then you know that the old floppy drive is bad.

If it doesn't work, alternate between several cables; if it still doesn't work and you know it's enabled in the BIOS then it's probably the channel that's bad since it's improbable that all 6 floppy cables are all bad.

BEWARE, however, if it is the channel it's possible, though rare, that it could screw up the good floppy drive in the test (hence the risk).

If you don't want to take the risk, you should be able to find a Hiren's Boot CD image avail for download on just about any bit-torrent site (You will need a bit-torrent client, such as Azureus (http://azureus.sourceforge.net/))

I hope this is helpfull. :)

EDIT::

I mis-read your post... I thought it read "6 different floppy cables", lol.
Do you know for a fact that atleast one of those floppies was working??
Do you also know for a fact if the cables you were using were working??

Granted, if you're using multiples of each, the it's highly unlikely that they are all bad.

It sounds to me that her floppy channel is shot. :(

It still might be prudent to download a reputible testing utility and run a test on the channel.

[budda]

the true problem is that when i put the floppy and cable (new) in correctly (in setup) the computer says that it is not installed and when i flip the cord over and connect it the computer says that it is installed put the light stays on and it won't read any disk. some else said that if a floppy drive light is on then it is connected the wrong way.
i'm new to this so that might be part of my confusion

[PhillMc]

the true problem is that when i put the floppy and cable (new) in correctly (in setup) the computer says that it is not installed and when i flip the cord over and connect it the computer says that it is installed put the light stays on and it won't read any disk. some else said that if a floppy drive light is on then it is connected the wrong way.
i'm new to this so that might be part of my confusion

I gathered that much.

It is true, if the floppy light stays on constantly, the cable is upside down.

You said that you have tried 6 different drives and a brand new cable so there is only 2 logical conclusions:

Either the channel has gone out,

or you've missed something in BIOS. It's possible that bios is swapping the disc letters; try plugging it in correctly and try to access 'B:' instead of 'A:' -- this actually happens quite a bit -- for some reason I'm just now remembering it, lol. Make sure to check all of the BIOS pages checking anything that remotely looks like it could be floppy related.; on some systems enabling USB floppy support can cause the floppy channel to be ignored -- but that's only on a select few.