Topic awaiting preservation: Battle: New hard drive vs old floppy drive...

The winner is.... Not me... Neither want to cooperate

The first problem: I recently acquired a "new" tower (new = newer than this dinosaur I'm on right now), which contained little more than a motherboard, processor, and video card. So, I get a stick of RAM (128Mb, PC100), and a new hard drive (Western Digital/IDE/60Gb/7200) and proceed putting the pieces together. All is fine, get it up running, check the BIOS, everything's just how it should be (or so I thought). Save and exit BIOS, it runs POST, RAM checks out ok, it finds the HD...
However, after it displays the HD information (as primary IDE), it has this comment: "Capable but disabled," which shows up for a split second before it goes to the next screen, where it freezes with a blinking cursor when it should be displaying the HD stats (ie. CYLS, HEADS, SECTORS, etc)...
After some tinkering with the BIOS, no change... I took it out and swapped it with the HD in this computer, and it runs fine (except that it won't boot because it doesn't have anything to boot from), but it doesn't lock up on the screen that it does in the other computer...

Second problem: Since the "new" tower didn't have a cable to connect the floppy drive, I borrowed the one from this computer, so I could at least try and get the "new" one to boot at all. But when I replaced the cable in this one, it comes up with "floppy disk failed (40) Press F1 to continue" during POST. Even after I worked all my tricks to get it to recognize the drive, one time, after I removed the drive from the Device Manager and rebooted, it came up thinking it was a 5 1/4" floppy drive labeled B:/.
Right now though, it says the drive "is not ready." It's still B: (as opposed to A , but it tries to be a 3 1/2" drive... The light will come on on the drive, and it will click once like it's trying to read it, but it just says "B: is not ready."

And since I've been staring at it for 6 hours now, I'll leave the problem here, and hope someone has any ideas about either problem, because I'm about to the point where the "get a bigger hammer" philosophy is very tempting...

So if anyone knows of something that might fix (or at least get me in the right direction of fixing) either of these, I'd be quite grateful.

as for the floppy:
If the light comes on and stays on, you probably reversed the cable. Warning, it will eat all floppys you put into it in this stage.

The HD- Do you have any other hdds configured in the bios? Check that first. It could be that this bios does not display the hd stats, but instead tries to boot directly... which of course fails, since there's nothing to boot on the hd. Hence the cursor. Also check if the boot order is set correctyl in the bios.

So long,

Tyberius Prime

You start HD is found giving all the info...and then you see:

"Capable but disabled"

This means the HD is ok, but you did not put on the SMART or S.M.A.R.T. system. This is a system build in to almost any modern hard drive for it's health. With SMART an HD can detect that it is going to pieces so instead of just crashing when the time has come, it will generate an message that it is dying and tell you to move your data to another place before it actually breaks up. Also the SMART system controls the temperature on the HD. If the HD has any coolling fan on it the SMART system controls it's speed.
So it's better to put this system on.

How to do this?
Goto bios and look for advanced settings>> look for SMART and switch it to enabled/on>>get out bios and save!
Also you might want to check the basic settings:
Goto bios>>look for basic settings>>
In the list of hardisks make shure you detect the HD. Do not use the "auto" settings because the computer will search for HD's when starting and thus delaying the start up procedure.
Now put the non used HD slots to "not installed" that way you are shuere the comp will not search for HD's anytime it starts. However when you want another HD in it you have to detect it again in side the bios.

Now take look at the Floppy drives it should be:
A: 1,44 MB/3,5" B: None.
or something simular, again no auto.
Now we do a finall check leave the basic menu and got the advanced settings:
look for "Diskdrive swap" or "swap A:/B:" or something like it and put it off.
Also look for something like: "boot up floppy seek" and put it on. The comp will check if the diskdrive is there.
Finally check boot sequence i found the next very usable:
-Diskdrive(a first
-Harddisk(c second
-CD-Rom (d last.

Hopes this helps


"Freedom of speech is by no means freedom to insult others" from the Razorart goodbye letter.

[This message has been edited by Rinswind 2th (edited 02-16-2003).]

Thanks you two, all is well again.

The cable was just reversed on the floppy (that'll make you feel good about being a CS major ) ... However, just to make sure I'm not completely losing it, on the cable, there is a single red stripe on one side... Doesn't that side typically go nearest the power cable into the device? Every other drive I've installed is like that (including the 2 dozen at school last week).

As for the HD... The floppy they sent to install it was corrupt, or missing something... ::shrugs:: ... But it wouldn't boot from it anyways. Made a new one (downloaded from WD's site), rechecked the BIOS, manually set up the HD, and poof, it loads like it's supposed to.

Thanks again you two.


-- Unoriginal Cell 693 --

The red stripe goes in the pin number one. Take a close look at your HD or floppy and you'll notice that you can find a "1" near one of the ends of the socket. In a regular HD, for instance, pins are numbered from 1 to 40 (or 80) but only the pin number 1 is usually printed.

Yea, I was aware of the red stripe being pin number one, however, the floppy in question is old and worn out, and if it did have a little number 1, it has long since disappeared... But I talking about in general, isn't pin number 1 positioned nearest the power cable?


-- Unoriginal Cell 693 --

Lord, if the others are near the power cable, then 99% of possibility that yours are too. I'm almost certain that if you plug the cable in the wrong way, no damage will cause to the drive (I have already done this for an HD). It won't work, just that. Then, unplug and plug the other way and that's it.

~bows his had~
That will 200 black pils then thank you very much....

Yes you are right about the floppy cable, the red stripe should be near the power connector in modern machines that is... In the old days the floppy cable was connected to two diskdrives the 5.x"(b and the 3.5"(a in those days it was pretty common that the floppy connector was reversed so it could be more easily connected.
In those day's no one cared much about standars either....

~thinks about the past for a moment~ Sigh..
You know the floppy drive is the only computer part that survives way back from the 286?



"Freedom of speech is by no means freedom to insult others" from the Razorart goodbye letter.

[This message has been edited by Rinswind 2th (edited 02-17-2003).]

OK, good to hear I'm not completely out in left field

quote:

---

In the old days the floppy cable was connected to two diskdrives the 5.x"(b: ) and the 3.5"(a: ) in those days it was pretty common that the floppy connector was reversed so it could be more easily connected.

---

Heh, that's just what I wanted to hear haha... Scary thing is I still have some old 5 1/4" disks (even though that drive has been unplugged for a few years now)


-- Unoriginal Cell 693 --

[This message has been edited by Lord_Fukutoku (edited 02-18-2003).]