Floppy Drives 

Attaching a floppy drive can be done in a similar manner to an IDE drive. See the diagram 

below for an example of a floppy cable. Most of the current floppy drives on the market 

require that the cable be installed with the colored stripe positioned next to the power 

connector. In most cases, there will be a key pin on the cable which will force proper 

connection of the cable. 

The first floppy drive (commonly 

denoted as A:) is usually attached to 

the end of the cable with the twist in it. 

Drive B: is usually connected to the 

second or third connector in the cable 

(the second or third connector after 

you install Drive A:).  

Refer to your floppy drive's installation 

instructions (if available), or contact 

your dealer if you are unsure about 

how to attach the floppy drive(s). 

Remember, you can only have 2 floppy 

drives connected at any given time. 

Below are some symptoms of incorrectly installed floppy drives. While they are minor and 

installing them incorrectly doesn't cause severe problems, it may cause your system to 

freeze or crash when trying to read and/or write to diskettes. 

Symptoms of incorrectly installed floppy drives 

Usually caused by faulty cables, cables 

put in backwards or a bad floppy drive 

or motherboard. Try another floppy 

drive to verify the problem if the cable 

Drive is not automatically detected 

is properly installed or try replacing the 

actual cable. Also check to see if the 

onboard floppy controller is enabled in 

the BIOS setup. 

The cable, floppy drive or motherboard 

Drive Fail message at bootup 

may be faulty. Try another drive or 

cable to verify. 

Check power cable and cabling. 

Drive does not power on 

Maybe a bad power supply or drive 

cable problem. 

Usually signifies that the cable on the 

drive is on backwards, which is a 

Drive activity light is constantly on 

common issue. Reverse the cable at 

the floppy drive end and try again. 

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