Adding a floppy drive

Paul_Varjak

Here in England, there used to be a guy called Noel Edmonds who issued gotchas! Guess you msut have heard of him!

Toxteth_OGrady

Mr_Skint wrote:

or a Bottom, now thats a play on words :-)

Yeah but keep it to ourselves, otherwise Paul might think it's Noel's Crinkley one!

:cool:

TOG

Toxteth_OGrady

Unless he lives behind a green door!

:cool:

TOG

Skint_Catt

Hi guys, thanks for all of this - made my life easier (and cheaper!).

I guess all the floppy drives on the links will run in my PC??? How do I connect it - does it just plug in if I take the front of the blank optical drive off?

Sorry - not got a clue!

S_C

Toxteth_OGrady

Yeah - easy. Just screw mount it into the drive bay; you'll have to take one of the blanks off the front. If your case doesn't have a small 3.5 floppy bay you might have to buy a 5.25:3.5 bay adapter. Two connections to make on the back of the drive. Power - a little white 4-pin connector and the IDE ribbon cable (should be supplied with the drive). Plug one end into the drive and the other end into your mobo - there'll only be one socket on the mobo it will fit. That's it - no drivers or anything to install.

:cool:

TOG

JimArnold

the IDE lead that plugs into a cd drive or a hard drive is different from the lead you need to plug into a floppy. The floppy drive cable usually has a twist in half of it - sounds strange but if you have the right one you'll see what I mean. It also needs to go into a different socket on the motherboard. It's usually alongside the two IDE sockets. The floppy has a different power supply lead much smaller.

If your machine was really manufactured to be without floppy then you may lack the motherboard socket and power lead. Most have them though.

Do you know what your motherboard is ?

Toxteth_OGrady

Just so you don't get confused, in this picture the left is a 50 pin SCSI cable (which you probably wont have), the centre is an 80 pin IDE cable (used to connect hard and optical drives to mobo) and the right is a 34 pin floppy cable (this is what you're looking for).



:cool:

TOG

Skint_Catt

Argh! LOL

I haven't yet bought a replacement base unit so I'll have to check when I get it - the one I wanted has sold out - any other good specs P4, DVD-/+RW, 256Mb, 80Gb for under £280????

Skint_Catt

It's alright I got the one I wanted! As above but with the added pleasure of an 8-in-1 card reader which I have no idea what to do with.

Anyway, think I would still like to add a floppy - can anyone tell me how to get the front off the blank optical drive? Tried prising it but don't want to break it.

Thanks

JimArnold

you can prose them out they usually have a lug at either side
The other otion is to take the side of and push it out - but sometimes there is a metal punch out playte to remove as well