Floppy Drive Fails (40)

Anubis · **Posted:** January 18th, 2006, 4:37 am

Rebuilt my comp over the past week, put in new motherboard, processor, video card etc.

But..

Now my floppy drive isnt working

says when I turn on my comp after detecting the IDE drives that the floppy drive failed (40).

Any idea what that means and how I can make it work?

If not, ah well, I dont use floppy discs anyways

Adbot · **Posted:** January 18th, 2006, 4:37 am

czskrazzi · **Posted:** January 18th, 2006, 9:09 am

maybe sure you check your bios settings, make sure that your floppy drive is booting up in the right process. no sure what that (40) is that :shock:

Anubis · **Posted:** January 18th, 2006, 12:07 pm

Ummmm... oki, and how do I get to them?

czskrazzi · **Posted:** January 18th, 2006, 2:59 pm

everytime you restart it should say something like press F10 to configure bios, or to access bios settings.. Different computers say different things. Also there could be an I/O conflict (input/output), or possibly even driver problems. Or the new motherboard may not be able to recoginize the type of floppy drive.. so many different things it could be :shock:

you can also go into system information, and look at your I/O, IRQ's(interrupt request line), DMA (Direct Memory Access), Conflicts/Sharing etc and see if the pc even recognizes the floppy drive and says whether it has an error or not.

I hope some of this helps alil..btw what operating system you using?

Anubis · **Posted:** January 18th, 2006, 3:15 pm

Well, apparently the drive is 'working fine'... It's got power etc, but it doesnt recognise a floppy disc I put in. (i've tried a few.)

czskrazzi · **Posted:** January 18th, 2006, 3:22 pm

Anubis wrote:

Well, apparently the drive is 'working fine'... It's got power etc, but it doesnt recognise a floppy disc I put in. (i've tried a few.)

oh its not recognizing the actual disks.. Hmm check inside the floppy and make sure nothing is inside it. Once i found a freaken penny inside mine..grrr :evil:

hmmm, then i had other problems, it would never read floppy disks and would damage a couple. So i put in a new drive and it would read a disk now and then, but barely ever. I could never figure out how to fix the problem i even called up dell and they couldnt figure it out.

So yeah i cant help any further

I wish i could.

Adbot · **Posted:** January 18th, 2006, 3:22 pm

Anubis · **Posted:** January 18th, 2006, 3:41 pm

Dont worry

I hardly use floppy disks anyway, it just so happens that this happened when I needed to use one -.- I got around it though - emailed file to my hotmail acc, put file on mp3, copied onto comp.

Stupid new motherboard caused tons of problems -.- running a lot better now though.

OT - i looked somewhere an saw you post for a hosting site that would allow you to upload zip files with images in yes? I take it youre going to unzip them too? Imageshack does that, but youll need to register. You get 20 credits to start off with, but idk how far that goes.

jrdgames · **Posted:** January 18th, 2006, 9:14 pm

interesting the motherboard is obviosly letting the computer see the drive and its getting power fine so its hooked up right and the os recognizes it.

all i can think of is that your floppy drive could be bad in a way that windows sees it and says everything is ok but it wont read the disks or all the disks youve tried are bad ive had both problems unfortunately we sometimes still have to use floppies.

changing to a cd burner is the ultimate fix lol sry i dont know that i can help much more other than try having someone test it to make sure it works properly.

Anubis · **Posted:** January 19th, 2006, 4:27 am

Yes, I had to use a floppy because the computer I first transferred the file from doesnt have a CD-R/W. I doubt I'll be using a floppy again any time soon

Alucardbsm · **Posted:** January 20th, 2006, 8:43 am

I suggest opening up your tower and making sure all the ribbons* are connected. I think there are two different ribbons* you have to connect. If you're connected and it's a firm connection, I'd say you have a bad floppy drive. Rarely does a new floppy drive not work unless it's already broken, and you should be able to replace it for free from the manufacturer.

*miss spelled ribbon

jrdgames · **Posted:** January 21st, 2006, 9:06 pm

those "ribbons" which are actually cables dont come loose by themselves you would have had to be messing around with them before also the os probably wouldnt be able to detect it if they were that loose, but if you really feel like taking the cover off your pc (which probably voids your warranty) then go ahead.

Alucardbsm · **Posted:** January 23rd, 2006, 9:02 pm

jrdgames wrote:

those "ribbons" which are actually cables dont come loose by themselves you would have had to be messing around with them before also the os probably wouldnt be able to detect it if they were that loose, but if you really feel like taking the cover off your pc (which probably voids your warranty) then go ahead.

I just use ribbons because that's what they're normally refered as. I was trying to say that you should open up your tower case and look to see if your floppy drive is connected to the motherboard. I think there was another ribbon that connects to something but I can't remember what it connected to atm. Also, they do require a firm plug in. You may think you shouldn't force it but with ribbons you have to show who's boss a little. I have a scar on my hand from trying to take out a ribbon that was difficult to get out (hit my hand pretty good on something sharp in there, be careful).

Oh and jrdgames, in his(/her?) first post they said they rebuilt their computer with a new motherboard, ect. so I doubt opening up the tower would void any warrenty not already voided.

The only thing I can think of that may cause your problem is in my posts (it may just be bad, maybe damaged during shipping?).

Anubis · **Posted:** January 24th, 2006, 2:56 am

jrdgames wrote:

those "ribbons" which are actually cables dont come loose by themselves you would have had to be messing around with them before also the os probably wouldnt be able to detect it if they were that loose, but if you really feel like taking the cover off your pc (which probably voids your warranty) then go ahead.

Uhh.. I've already done that.. I put a new motherboard in. lol.

But yes, it is connected to the floppy drive via IDE cables, otherwise it wouldnt show the A:\ drive in "my computer".

Alucardbsm wrote:

I have a scar on my hand from trying to take out a ribbon that was difficult to get out

Oh, I get that with the fan -.-

Other than that, the floppy drive is pretty old, and was working fine (i think) before I put in new parts and needed to use it. lol.

Dave · **Posted:** January 24th, 2006, 7:51 am

I had the same problem with my computer when I upgraded it. The cable from the motherboard to the floppy can fit any way on the back of the drive, unlike the ones from the hard drives. Make sure you have that plugged the correct way on both the motherboard and on the floppdy drive itself.

Alucardbsm · **Posted:** January 24th, 2006, 8:52 am

I would really suggest that you just ditch the whole inner floppy drive and go with an external one via USB.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6821103510

Nice $24 plus $5 for shipping, and no more problems with not having a floppy drive anywhere because it's external. I would suggest that. Or you can completly ignore the floppy drive because they're starting to be extinct, like the 5" floppy drives.