Yesterday my cdrom stopped working. To check if any cable is loose I
disconnected a & b. When I reconnected them I got the messages "not
ready reading a:" (or b or p: (the cdrom)). Suspecting I connected
them wrong, I changed a to where b was connected to the daisy cable
and vice versa. Setup did not show anything wrong. When I restarted,
the computer reqested pressing F1 to correct some error on the slave
drive, but after that both mater and slave hard disks worked fine but
a, b, an cdrom did not. Upon restarting the request to press F1 was
repeated. Today the cdrom worked and the computer did nor request
pressing F1, but a and b do not work. Does anybody have an idea what
could be wrong an how to fix it?

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Request for Question Clarification by endo-ga on 26 Dec 2004 09:00 PST

Hi,

Sounds like you connected the cables to the floppies the wrong way around.

Thanks.
endo

The original problem with the CD might be the drive going flaky. Does
it only balk on one CD or all? Lasers go soft and there ain?t a lot
you can do about that. Mucky lens can be cured but you have to be able
to open the unit up to clean it. There are a couple of posts from me
recently on how to clean them -- search guzzi. One thing I forgot to
mention is that usually you have to have the tray open first to get
them to bits and unclip the front lip -- either leave it open or do
the straightened paper clip trick in the eject hole.

Your A and B though. Two floppies? Check the orientation of the
cables. Usually they can be inserted wrong way round. Pin one (red
tracer) is almost always is towards the power plug and the pcb may
indicate this on the silk screen. But make sure the motherboard end is
in the right way round too -- again it is often marked on the silk
screen and the mb manual will also indicate.

While the thing is in bits, gently disturb dust with a light paint
brush and blow or suck it clean (vacuum cleaner). Remarkably, I?ve
cured a couple of machines by dusting. Perhaps a fried spider across
pins. Also of course give the cable connectors a push to make sure
they are all seated.

If you?ve got the mb manual, you should find all info on how the
floppies are supposed to be connected. If you don?t, download a
manual. For the mb type, if you can?t see anything on the board
itself, the start-up screen (at the bottom) should give you id
alphanumeric.

If you need more specific details on these suggestions, just ask.

Best

Thanks, guzzi-ga, for your comment. Excuse my ignorance, but I do not
know what the pcb or the silk screen or the mb manual is or how to
load it down and would appreciate instructions how to do this.

Thanks in advance

PCB stands for Printed Circuit Board 
- typically the green board that all the chips sit on

Silk Screen is the writing (usually white) on the PCB

IMO it is not a good idea to mess around with hardware unless one is
incredibly careful and marks up connections with an indellible pen
before hand.

Brushing and vacuuming (with the power off) is generally a good move

Thanks, guzzi-ga, for your answer. I would also appreciate if you
could let me know know what mb manual is or how to load it down.
Thanks in advance.

I agaree with guzzi's Comment.  It was working before you disconnected
it, so it's not malfunctioning.  It's hooked up wrong, or the cables
are not seated correctly.

Did I get thanked for the ?frde? contribution? I don?t mind :-) Hope I
haven't deprived you of $2 cynthia.

Still slightly surprised by you having two floppies. Is this a really
old system with a 3.5 inch ?A? drive and 5.25 ?B? drive, or do you
have two 3.5 ones? This is relevant to the cable connections but I?ll
hold back on possibly excess info for now. Do you know what the
computer specifications are, such as the processor. This should flash
up at the top of the screen just after start up. Hopefully it?s not a
Compaq, IBM, HP and a few other blue chips which choose to do things
differently just to be annoying.

?mb?, abbreviation for ?motherboard? -- as frde said, the big board
into which everything else connects. So I take it you are not in
possession of the booklet (manual). The alphanumerics at the bottom of
the screen at start up can be used to trace the make and model. You
can freeze the display with the pause button on some machines (but not
all) to give you time to write down. Escape key unfreezes. Most decent
boards have identification on the board itself though. Have a good
look with a bright light. Sometimes the id is sneaked between the card
connectors.

After you have what look like the details, do a web search for the
manufacturer if the name came up, or just the alphanumerics (or part
of it) if that?s all. To narrow the search, include terms like
?motherboard identification?. Manuals are usually available in ?pdf?
format so you may need Acrobat to read them. If nothing on your system
can read pdf files, Acrobat Reader can be downloaded *everywhere*.

Quite a number of sites even show pictures as an aid to
identification. If after you have gleaned the details and you get a
bit stuck with the search, post all the numbers and letters and I (or
frde etc) can take it from there. But in the interim, can you give
more details on the drive types, the age of the machine and what the
floppy connector cable looks like. As I said, best not to flood you
with unnecessary detail at this point.

Replies may be a wee bit slow at the moment because of some festival
or other, but you can vaac-ume it in the mean time. Ha ha ha.

Best

Reversing b: a: connection to daisy cable makes b: work but a: does
not   and neither does cd rom or setup and starting requested pressing
F1. Also computer keeps disconnecting from internet. Cheching battery
shows 2.9 volts. Could all the trouble be due to battery burnt out? If
yes does anybody know the voltage range of the battery and how much
voltage can be applied without damaging the computer?

Since part of the trouble was traced to a low cdrom battery I will
cancel this question and replace it with "how to get both a: & b: to
work"