fdd cable reversed

[joanne fee]

what damage could be caused by connoting the fdd cable to the fdd in
reverse. I assumed it would only plug in one way but it does not and I had
it in backwards. When I started up the pc the first few times the light on
the floppy stayed on permanently and it would not work. I have put in in the
other way and the drive now runs but does not read disks( I/O error or
reports lots of missing or damaged files on the disk)
I have a replacement drive coming but am worried I have damaged the mobo. Is
this possible?

 

[John Lee Brown]

what damage could be caused by connoting the fdd cable to the fdd in
reverse. I assumed it would only plug in one way but it does not and I had
it in backwards. When I started up the pc the first few times the light on
the floppy stayed on permanently and it would not work. I have put in in
the other way and the drive now runs but does not read disks( I/O error or
reports lots of missing or damaged files on the disk)
I have a replacement drive coming but am worried I have damaged the mobo.
Is this possible?

It is possible to damage a MB this way but very unlikely. The last time I
destroyed a MB this way was with a Tandy 1000 which had the power and data
on the same cable. So I would not worry overly much that you have damaged
the MB. Many of us have put the cable in backwards and then reversed it with
no problems.
remove the saynotospam to reply.

 

[Greyfrog]

Joanna,
I've reversed the floppy cable too, and it has never done any harm
to the mobo.
The issue you are having with "does not read disks" and "lots of
missing and damaged files on the disk" sounds like a hard drive
failure to me.
I don't know which OS you're running, but if it's Windows, drop
into MS-DOS mode (real, not in a window) and run Scandisk. See
what you get. A better method of running Scandisk is to use a bootdisk
(reboot) and run Scandisk from that.
Run a second test like PC Diagnostics Tuff Test 1.53 or 3.53 which
will test and troubleshoot hard drives, floppy drives, all types of
memory, serial & parallel ports, video displays, etc.

 

[joanne fee]

Joanna,
I've reversed the floppy cable too, and it has never done any harm
to the mobo.
The issue you are having with "does not read disks" and "lots of
missing and damaged files on the disk" sounds like a hard drive
failure to me.
I don't know which OS you're running, but if it's Windows, drop
into MS-DOS mode (real, not in a window) and run Scandisk. See
what you get. A better method of running Scandisk is to use a bootdisk
(reboot) and run Scandisk from that.
Run a second test like PC Diagnostics Tuff Test 1.53 or 3.53 which
will test and troubleshoot hard drives, floppy drives, all types of
memory, serial & parallel ports, video displays, etc.

sorry its not the hdd thats showing errors it the floppy when trying to run
startup disks.I have not yet been able to format the new hdd or anything
yet.
Did you damage your floppy drive when you reversed the cable?

 

[Guest]

what damage could be caused by connoting the fdd cable to the fdd in
reverse. I assumed it would only plug in one way but it does not and I had
it in backwards.

No damage at all because each floppy drive signal is the "open
collector" type, meaning when it goes active it merely grounds its
signal line. An open collector line works like the pull cord on a city
bus, meaning it doesn't matter whether one person or several people
pull it simultaneously.

 

[Stephen]

what damage could be caused by connoting the fdd cable to the fdd in
reverse. I assumed it would only plug in one way but it does not and I had
it in backwards. When I started up the pc the first few times the light on
the floppy stayed on permanently and it would not work. I have put in in the
other way and the drive now runs but does not read disks( I/O error or
reports lots of missing or damaged files on the disk)
I have a replacement drive coming but am worried I have damaged the mobo. Is
this possible?

You need to reformat any floppy put in while the cable was reversed.

When the cable is reversed, the floppy is activated in write mode and
will erase the track the head is sitting on.

Stephen


--

 

[Dave H.]

what damage could be caused by connoting the fdd cable to the fdd in
reverse. I assumed it would only plug in one way but it does not and I had
it in backwards. When I started up the pc the first few times the light on
the floppy stayed on permanently and it would not work. I have put in in
the other way and the drive now runs but does not read disks( I/O error or
reports lots of missing or damaged files on the disk)
I have a replacement drive coming but am worried I have damaged the mobo.
Is this possible?

I've put the floppy cable on backwards, put in a floppy, and found the disc
is unreadable, and becomes unreadable in any working machine (and must be
reformatted).

See if that drive can format and then write to a good floppy, if not, you
may still have cable problems, or dirty heads in that drive (gently clean
with alcohol + long Q-tip swab), or perhaps the drive is bad.

I have connected HD and FD cables backwards, too many times, and never
damaged a motherboard that way.