floppy drive

[mike13]

I know the red part of the cable goes toward the power supply for hard drives and CD roms etc. But I am looking at the floppy in my computer and the red wire is toward the center of the unit and the small 4 wire (power I guess) mounts above but toward the right. Is this correct ? Thank you in advance again, Mike

[mike13]

The reason I noticed the wire is because when I start the computer, and the light comes on, on the floppy, the floppy starts grinding and I have to turn the main switch off. I tried another floppy that I had laying around, and that one does the same thing. If I wiggle the cables at the back, sometimes I can get the grinding to stop, but in a few minutes the light will come on again on the floppy and it will start to grind or vibrate again. I even tried changing cables but that made no difference. What do you think, is the new floppy dead (about 2 weeks old) and also the other floppy I tried, or is there another problem ?

[Big Booger]

things to try:

check in your bios and disable any floppy checks, it could be that the BIOS is checking your floppy drive and gets stuck..

Check the boot order, and remove the floppy from the boot process.

Check your power supply and make sure there is enough juice to go around to all the components..

if none of the above work, go to a store and pick you up a decent SONY or Fujitsu floppy drive. :D

hell, today you really dont need one unless you are running a pre XP OS.. might even think about the new USB devices that companies are releasing that will replace the floppy :D


Keep us posted.

Update:

Below is a guide from gateway that hits some of the other critical issues..

could be that the mounting is crooked.. could be that the cable isn't installed correctly or isnt firmly seated:

http://service.gateway.com/gateway/step/1,,5+26+36038+139+24713+3702,00.html

[mike13]

What do you mean "it gets stuck", you must mean the floppy.
I tried removing the floppy from the startup procedure, but a few minutes later, i noticed the light on the floppy came on, and then it started to grind or vibrate again. This the floppy in my new Pentium 4 computer that I have two weeks. If I can tell for sure it is the floppy,I will just buy another one. The cost to ship the floppy back would be more than another floppy. As I said before I have tried another floppy but not sure if that is any good either, but in the process I did check all the connections. AS far as I can tell the floppy does NOT grind when I am actually using it, like formating etc. It just seems to start grinding when it is idle.

[mike13]

Additional info. The guy I bought the computer from said it may have something to do with Norton, so I disabled Norton from loading at startup, and believe it or not, I started the computer four times now without a problem. Does this make any sense to anyone ??

[Big Booger]

Well,
It is possible.. perhaps Norton was scanning the floppy drive on boot or something..

Was it norton Antivirus, system works, or firewall?

I've never had that particular problem before. I have had a floppy that when you tried to access a floppy disk would run forever and the only way to stop it would be to shutdown the PC.. that floppy drive by the way, got put in the trash, and a new one bought promptly thereafter.

Next time someone has a floppy problem similar to your issue, I will keep the Norton thing in mind.
:D

[Thor]

In Norton's configuration I believe there's an option to scan all, or selective, disks on startup and the floppy is one of them. Check out your options in Norton and disable that one.

[mike13]

I tried to stop Norton from scanning the floppy on startup. Not sure I did it exactly, but if I disable Norton I have no problem. I can be up and running for hours, no problem. As soon as I enable norton then light goes on, on the floppy and then it starts to grind again. As soon as I disable Norton again, it stops grinding.
I have completely uninstalled Norton 2003 AV from this computer and installed Pc-Cillin 2002 which I got on a disc with the computer. It looks like it even has a firewall built in. So far there is no probalen with the floppy with Pc-cillin installed, even at bootup. is this Pc-cillin AV any good. Any comments about it, or is there another free virus protection I could download from the internet. many thanks for your suggestions.

[Big Booger]

I have found that norton tends to screw up something all the time..

But they are getting better.. back in the day, especially with their systemworks products.. I would have lots of trouble out of it..
Haven't used systemworks since 2001
:D

[Thor]

I use several av's and Norton is one of them. I don't have it installed in the new setup yet but i never have it at 24 hr. protection, it's on manual, on demand only, as, in the past, I've found it to be a resource hog.

[efc]

I have quit trying to use Norton AV due to conflicts, lockups, etc.

[egghead]

i use norton antivirus 2002 at work and i have to praise norton for their email real time protection.

the 300 mhz at work with 64 megs of ram does the job.

and i am not a big fan of norton due to the blue errors and sluggish operation on 9x os but things change.

ive used pccillan in the past but left it after their online virus scanner found viruses on some programs that ran crappy.

i recommend kaspersky antivirus for its great realtime protection.

i dont use antivirus at home because i dont use outlook express or download everything.

i use trend online virus scanner and gladiator thats here at techzonez if my computer starts acting strange.


about your floppy
remember, if you put the cable on backwards the ligh will stay on on powerup.

if you see this turn off! turn the cable around.

also n your bios you may have the option to report floppy drive errors to windows.
if its on turn it off and vice versa


egghead

[Big Booger]

Kapersky is great.

Gladiator does a fine job and is quite quick.

another favorite of mine is AVG from Grisoft

http://www.grisoft.com

It is free and works rather well. I have never had a compatibility problem with it, and I have used it with windows 95,98, Me, 2K, and XP... haven't tried it with longhorn yet, but I will.

:D

[egghead]

thanks

does t scan email?

i get a hundred viruses a day + or - at the mailbox at work?

norton does it at at work.


but

whats the best real-time email virus detector?

[Big Booger]

http://allware.theshoppe.com/c-virus.htm

There is a good list of virus scanners, with a short description and a link to each one.

Read below for the specific features of AVG:

The AVG 6.0 Anti-Virus System - AVG 6.0 Free Edition

Download, install and use AVG 6.0 Free Edition and get:

AVG Resident Protection
AVG Email Scanner
AVG On-Demand Scanner
Basic Scheduled Tests
Free Virus Database Updates
Automatic Update feature
Easy-To-Use Interface
Automatic Healing of infected files
AVG Virus Vault for safe handling of infected files

[efc]

I have used AVG for many months and have uninstalled Norton from one of my computers and McAfee from the other. As stated above I have had more than a little trouble with Norton and my McAfee was getting long-in-the-tooth. With AVG my AV protection is always current.

I also tried Gladiator for a short time. I believe it is also a good alternative. Donna tells us each time there is an update.

Both are great alternatives, and best of all, they are free.

[Big Booger]

Efc,
well put old chap.

[Conan]

I use NAV 2003 and I don't get any grinding noises with my floppy.