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A floppy disk drive's connectors are at the back of the unit. |
Controller connector: |
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The floppy drive connector looks similar to a 40-pin IDE connector, but is a little smaller with a pin count of 34. |
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However, as with an IDE cable, the convention is for Pin 1 on the connector to correspond with the red wire of the floppy drive ribbon. |
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This applies with rounded floppy cables - as we're using here - as well as the more conventional floppy ribbon cable. |
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Connect the floppy drive ribbon between the drive and the the floppy drive connector on the motherboard - next to the pair of IDE controllers - making sure to similarly align the red line up with Pin 1 on the motherboard connector. These days both connectors and cables are keyed to prevent them being inserted the wrong way round. |
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A standard 5-connector floppy ribbon cable is a far more complex looking beast. |
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At one end is a 34-pin header connector for connection to the motherboard floppy disk controller. In the middle and at the opposite end of the cable are two pairs of connector, each comprising a 34-pin header type connector for use with a modern day 3.5in floppy drive and a larger card edge connector - used in bygone days by older 5.25in floppy disk drives. |
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However, it is the twist in the cable that effectively reverses the signals sent by a group of seven of the cable's wires, immediately before the end pair of connectors, that characterises a conventional floppy drive ribbon cable.
Historically, floppy drives used a drive select (DS) jumper to configure the drive as either the A: or B: drive in the system. These days floppy drives come preconfigured as :B drives and its the floppy cable itself that determines how the system sees the drive.
A drive connected to the middle connector will be seen as it's been configured, namely as a :B drive. However, a drive connected to the end connector will effectively have it's drive example designation reversed by the twist in the cable, so that it's recognised as an :A drive. |
Power connector:
The small white connector to the left of the controller connector is the drive's power connector. |
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Connect this to a spare small female 4-pin white connector from the power supply. |
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Again, the connector and receptacle are keyed to prevent insertion the wrong way round.
Configuring your BIOS
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To have the BIOS automatically detect the new drive and set its parameters you need to enter the Standard CMOS Setup category of the BIOS Setup and ensure that the IDE Master and Slave designations are correct for your current configuration.
If a Master or Slave device is set to Disable or None or a similar designation, change it as appropriate to Enable or Auto (or something similar, depending on your setup program).
Some BIOSes have a feature that renders a drive's location in relation to the ribbon twist irrelevant. Make sure this is not enabled, else a drive connected to the floppy cable after the twist may not be recognised as your A: drive.
Save the settings and exit the setup routine, allowing the system to continue to boot.
The BIOS should now automatically detect the new drive.When Windows has loaded you can confirm that it has by going to My Computer where you should see the new drive identified. The particular drive example assigned will depend on your machine's configuration. | |
