Dave's 'Techno-Bits' WEB Pages!

This page is being devoted to the 'do-it-yourselfer' and some of the annoying things that can occur when you just want to get it done!

This turned out to be a no-brainer. When attempting to eliminate my old 5.25" floppy drive from my system I figured that all I had to do was unplug the power and data cables, box the part and power it up! Wrong! I was getting messages indicating the floppy should be there which resulted in a system lockup. I changed the BIOS to show 5.25 was no longer installed and booted up again. Same result!

Simple cure if it applies to your machine!

Before you enter the internal components of your pc be sure to disconnect the power supply and use a grounding strap to eliminate disasterous static electricity. A small amount of static can virtually kill your pc. I don't believe in touch to discharge, but rather remain grounded throughout the entire job. Carefully examine the ribbon cable that the 3.5" floppy is connected with and follow it to the connector on the motherboard. Does the cable have a splice and twist to it somewhere along the length of it? Chances are it does! What you do is unplug the cable from the motherboard and from the floppy drive. Switch connections by taking the connector that was plugged into the motherboard and connecting it to the floppy drive. Take the other end and connect it to the motherboard. Reboot your machine. You should be pleasantly surprised at the results. Log off as you normally would and power down the system. Replace the pc cover after disconnecting your grounding strap. Done!

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If you have any further questions, or other insights, please send them to, ME!