KT7A-Raid / floppy drive problem

[Merc7]

I'm building a system for a friend and have run into a very frustrating problem. The machine will not recognize the floppy drive no matter what I do. I've tried 2 floppy drives, three different cables, and every different way possible of connecting the cables. All the cables i've tried either don't have the little notch on the end, or it's been cut off. This means i've been able to switch the direction of the cable to every way possible. I thought maybe the floppy drive I installed in the computer was broken, so I pulled a floppy drive from a working machine but got the same error when booting up. I enabled "boot up floppy seek" in the bios so I can check to see if I got it working before it tires to boot anything. I get the following error message every time:
"floppy disk(s) fail (40)"

Has anyone run into this before with this board? Could it just be a defective board?

Here's the system specs in case you're interested:

Abit KT7A-Raid MB
Athlon Thunderbird 1.0 Ghz CPU
Maxtor 15 gig IDE HD
Aureal vortex A3d PCI sound card
An old 56k ISA modem
40x ide cd-rom
radio shack cdr-w drive (2x4x16x I think)
Maxtor 15 gig IDE HD

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[twong82]

did u make sure the red line on the floppy cable is closest to the power input plug

 

[mikef208]

I am having the oppisite of this problem. I have a floppy listed, when I am using an LS120 and a zip drive, the flopp should not be there. Good luck

 

[Regalk]

I wake up turn on my IwillKK266/Tbird800 o/c to1000 and whats the first thing I see in the Mboards forum - Another ABIT KT7A (or raid) problem - when is it going to end??

 

[DaddyG]

I know you said that you have tried the cable all ways but try one more time like this. Make sure that you are using the last connector, after the twist in the cable for the floppy. Make sure that the red stripe is on the LEFT (forget the Power connector issue, it doesn't work for floppies) looking at the pins of the drive. Seat the other end firmly in the mobo following the correct Pin 1 orientation.

Check that you have 3.5 Floppy selected in your BIOS.

If all these fail, your FDD controller on your mobo is bad.

 

[CocaCola5]

I had the same problem like yours but on a MSI Pro2-a. I did the exact same thing like switch floppy drive from working machine and cables etc. Anyways, I got it working by getting a new floppy drive at Compusa. I know it doesn't makes sense but atleast it worked for mine.

 

[workingjoe]

I just built my first rig with the KT7A...I also experienced this problem as well - after spending an hour making sure all my connections were right and rechecking, I was still having the same problem that you were. The next morning I went out and bought a new floppy and controller cable and first tested the new drive...Worked like a charm.

 

[Merc7]

Thanks for all the suggestions guys. I've determined that it has to be a bad floppy controller. I'm debating wether or not to return the board for a new one, or get an isa floppy controller or something like that. Anyone know of a place that sells those? If I return the board should I get the Abit again, or go with an ASUS A7V-133. Which board will give me less troubles?

 

[grendelkhan]

Honestly depends on how much work you are will to do.

I've come to the conclusion that Asus makes boards that are "Fire and Forget". Plug stuff in and it just runs until the cows come home.

Abit seems to cater to those of us that, while wanting a kick-ass rig, feel a need to continually tweak, break, suffer, etc. and don't feel right unless we do.

There's a high learning curve and alot of swearing involved, but honestly, I wouldn't trade this board for the world, it utterly rocks.

Course, took me three weeks to get it there...