Bad floppy?

[Travis McGee]

Hi again. I built me new box and ran Tuff Test on it. It shows a bad seek,
rotational error on a new floppy drive. I ran the same test on my old
computer, all ok.

While it was testing rotational speed, the disc wasn't turning at all. Is it
possible this old testing prog doesn't run the FDD properly, or should I
change out the drive?

It was a new Sony floppy. drive.

TIA

 

[The Seabat]

Did you try reversing the cable to the floppy?

 

[Travis McGee]

Did you try reversing the cable to the floppy?

Interesting.........the twisted cable always goes to the drive, correct?

 

[The Seabat]

Generally. But it is real easy to turn it around on the drive
itself. The motherboard usually has a notch so that you can only
place the end of IDE cable in one way. A lot of floppys don't always
have a good identifiable key to make sure the cable fits correctly.
My rule of thumb is to make sure the edge of the cable that is
marked (usually with a red color) goes toward the center of the
drive. If you have it hooked up backwards, the floppy In Use light
will usually stay on all the time there is power to the system. But
that's not set in stone, either.

 

[Travis McGee]

My rule of thumb is to make sure the edge of the cable that is
marked (usually with a red color) goes toward the center of the
drive.

Are you SURE about this: All my cables have the stripe on the outside
edge....

 

[The Seabat]

It varies from unit to unit. Mine are generally on the inside. Does
your unit have the number one pin marked? That is where the stripe
goes. It probably won't hurt to change and see if that corrects your
problem.

 

[Travis McGee]

It varies from unit to unit. Mine are generally on the inside. Does
your unit have the number one pin marked? That is where the stripe
goes. It probably won't hurt to change and see if that corrects your
problem.

OK, I mis-spoke. My old box is as you described, however, the new unit has
the notch so it won't go in a different way. I'm wondering if the test is
defective and won't spool up the drive for a rev test.....I'm only going to
use it to load the RAID software, though.

Which brings up another question.......Will Win Home be ok to use in a LAN?
Did I read it didn't have the networking stuff like PRO?

Thanks again.

 

[tjustin]

OK, I mis-spoke. My old box is as you described, however, the new unit has
the notch so it won't go in a different way. I'm wondering if the test is
defective and won't spool up the drive for a rev test.....I'm only going to
use it to load the RAID software, though.

You said the test showed errors, but does the floppy drive work? Can
you both read and write to a disk? Is the disk good? Nothing was
ever mentioned about this, so I thought I'd mention it.

 

[Travis McGee]

You said the test showed errors, but does the floppy drive work? Can
you both read and write to a disk? Is the disk good? Nothing was
ever mentioned about this, so I thought I'd mention it.

Oh, sorry. Tuff Test is written in machine language and loads from the
floppy, so yes it works. I tried a dup and got the same results. Tried the
test on my other box, and no errors. I tried a 98 start-up disc and it
booted. No OS on yet, so no WIN test was used. I may just get another FD
when I order the OS.

Thanks for the catch!

 

[tjustin]

Oh, sorry. Tuff Test is written in machine language and loads from the
floppy, so yes it works. I tried a dup and got the same results. Tried the
test on my other box, and no errors. I tried a 98 start-up disc and it
booted. No OS on yet, so no WIN test was used. I may just get another FD
when I order the OS.

Thanks for the catch!

Weird....... I'd think of the floppy drive works, there would not be
an issue. I wonder if the Tuff Test is accurate? Is the OS the same
on both machines? Maybe that test dont work right on some OSs?
Also, the brand of the FD might matter? Just a guess. I'd say for
the low price of a FD, just get another one, but dont toss that one in
the trash just yet. Stick it in your other machine just for the heck
of it and see what happens....

Also, try another cable. You never know when a wire might be loose.

 

[Franc Zabkar]

Oh, sorry. Tuff Test is written in machine language and loads from the
floppy, so yes it works. I tried a dup and got the same results. Tried the
test on my other box, and no errors. I tried a 98 start-up disc and it
booted. No OS on yet, so no WIN test was used. I may just get another FD
when I order the OS.

Thanks for the catch!

If the floppy spins when the OS asks it to spin, then I'd report the
problem/bug to Tufftest's authors.

If you really want to find out what is happening, or not happening,
then measure the Motor Enable A/B and Drive Select A/B pins on the
interface cable:

http://pinouts.ru/Storage/InternalDisk_pinout.shtml

The above pins should be accessible at the spare connector.

- Franc Zabkar