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Fried my floppy drive!

S

sm8000

Gawd
Joined
Aug 5, 2004
Messages
525
Any reason a floppy drive would go up in smoke suddenly? I was rearranging my hard drives and when I started my computer I got a POST screen saying "Floppy error" or something like that. I then smelled that smell, and saw a puff of smoke rising from the case. I quickly shut down and pulled out the drive cage with my floppy and one of my HDDs. The black plastic connector on the floppy cable is slightly melted along the bottom edge, and the edge of the PCB where the connecting pins are is scorched brown.

I think I may have: a) forgotten to connect the floppy's power connector; or b)mis-connected the floppy cable. Would either of these cause smoke? Also, my CPU fan (a generic socket 7) is the kind that gets power from a 4-pin molex adapter - you join one end of it to a PSU connector, and the other end to a drive. The floppy connector is on the PSU cable that the CPU fan is attached to. I accidentally made the CPU fan stop for a second when I brushed it with my fingertip (no damage). Would this have done it?
 
sm8000 said:
Any reason a floppy drive would go up in smoke suddenly?
Click to expand...
....several.
sm8000 said:
....b)mis-connected the floppy cable.
Click to expand...
...I think that'd do it. Power to ground short. Per the ATX spec. for floppy connectors:

Pin 1 - +5 VDC
Pin 2 - Ground
Pin 3 - Ground
Pin 4 - +12 VDC

Scoot that over one pin either way, and I think you'll tie one of the Vcc's to ground. Ouch.

Good Luck - B.B.S.
 
bah! it's ok...you didn't need it anymore anyway. Gives you perfect reason to fill that space with another hdd :D

depending on your mb, you could use a USB device to boot from. Those thumbdrives work well for this...and hold a LOT more than a floppy disk if you ever need to boot from one.
 
:D you could put something else in that spot , is it a single slot, if not you can put a 80 mm intake on it , I mounted a floppy inside my case because I never use the damn thing anyway. all my new rigs dont have them :D

ps if you need a floppy drive I have a few
 
Thanks for the info. Everyone at the other forums I frequent seem to concur. Guess I goofed up the power connection. Anyhow I think I'll be able to get a new floppy from work or from one of my co-workers. It needs to have no faceplate since it's going inside an IBM Aptiva. The (socket 7) system is over five years old, no booting from USB here :D Thanks again!
 
Oh yeah, if I screwed up the power connection, howcome the damage is in the area of the ribbon cable? :confused:
 
sm8000 said:
Oh yeah, if I screwed up the power connection, howcome the damage is in the area of the ribbon cable? :confused:
Click to expand...
A guess - you may have shorted Vcc's to ground at the power cable, but then the DC signals in the controller were then shorted to ground as well. The power cable is lots thicker than the ribbon, so it may have gotten as hot or hotter but didn't "flame on" like the little ribbon cable.

Good Luck - B.B.S.
 
just don't do it again.... it doesn't matter what you did, just don't do it again :p

and I still think you should get a new floppy, because even tho pen drives are cool, you gotta have a floppy for the windows F6 monster :(
 
Oh I'll be getting a new floppy all right. Shouldn't be too much trouble. Somebody somewhere else said that many of the wires in the floppy ribbon cable are grounding, so if I screwed up the grounding on the power connector it could have that result.
 
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