[Coco] Floppy drive setup HELP!

[Gene Heskett]

On Friday 09 January 2009, Fedor Steeman wrote:
>Hi all,
>
>For some time now, I have possessed several floppy drives, most 5.25" and
>two 3.5". I have been setting these up in different configurations and
>different cases from time to time, taking head of the drive number jumpers.
>
>Lately I have been trying set them up again, but I cannot get any of the
>(loose) 5.25" drives to work anymore! I try to have one 3.5" drive set up
>with one 5.25" drive with the latter being drive 1. I set the jumpers on the
>appropriate locations and connect the cable like I used to do. However,
>whenever there is a floppy in the 5.25" drive it just keeps on turning for
>no apparant reason. Whenever I try a DIR or a DSKINI I get an ?IO ERROR.
>Switching the drive numbers has no effect. The 3.5" drive works fine.
>
>Since this occurs for every 5.25" drive I try I suspect this may have
>something to do with the cable or jumper setup, but I have no idea what I am
>doing wrong. Does anyone have some tips? It would be greatly appreciated. I
>still have hundreds of old floppies I would like to save somehow.
>
>Cheers,
>Fedor

1.  If you have accidentally used an pc style twisted cable this time it could 
be a possible explanation.  Sometimes removing the connector from the cable 
and crimping it back on 1/4" away is needed.  In any event, give the cable an 
end to end continuity test while flexing the connectors a bit.  Its rare, but 
I have seen broken conductors.  Also look at the cutoff ends of the cable 
where they are cut flush with the side of the connector body of the two end 
connectors to make sure there are no inter-wire shorts because a dull cutter 
was used and the wires 'smeared' as they were cut.

I have one cable, about 7 feet long, that I made up several years ago, which 
has both a set of fully populated edge connectors crimped onto it, and also 
has the standard IDC header connectors crimped on adjacent to the card edge 
connectors so I can plug any drive in anyplace.

On the 5.25" drives its usually pretty simple to tell them what drive they 
are, but with the 3.5" drives one often has to grab a meter and trace of the 
pcb, cutting and bridging traces to make them something other than the 
default drive 1.  But it can be done.  Be sure and mark the drive with its 
drive number in that case.

Good luck.

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-- 
Cheers, Gene
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