Problem occurred when plugging in floppy drive.

[WasTech]

I was reconnecting my floppy drive power connector. I tried to be really careful because I had missed with plug connection before (year ago) but this time it caused problems. Last time when I turned it on it smoked (at floppy power wires) and ruined the plug but I had a 2nd one to use from PSU and my computer worked again.

This time the same thing happened but I'm out of plugs. And when it boots up I can get into the BIOS, there I changed the boot options to HD and DVD rom. Rebooted and it still said something like change boot options. Then I changed to DVD rom as 1st option but same thing. I really hope I didn't ruin the new MB. Or lost my 250GB HD.

So can anybody tell me what might have happened can I reset anything on MB? Could it be that I didn't have a floppy connected? I've never done that before so I wouldn't know. The PSU seems ok. Can I rewire a new plug onto the harness?

I really wish they would make floppy drive plugs idiot proof like others on computers. Because apparently I'm an idiot. I can't believe I did this twice now. I never did it before until like I said last year. Anybody else do this dumb move?

Clone comp A8V-X MB AMD 64 3500+
Antec TP 550W PSU

 

[Baez]

Reset the CMOS on your computer by taking out the small button battery out of the motherboard. Leave it out for 15 minutes. I would also recommend changing your PSU because anything smoking to do with power is not a good thing.

 

[eyeCpc]

I question the need for clearing the cmos since that has nothing to do with the actual problem. In order to see a direct short when going to plug the power in on a floppy drive you would have to had to force the plug on upside down since the plug slides onto four wire prongs.

Apparently you now smoked one entire rail since the 12v feed for each floppy plug is tied to a molex type plug used for an ide drive HD or optical. If that was the only rail you will have no choice but to replace the supply since sending it in for a new harness will end up costing about the same.

 

[WasTech]

No, I know it was not on upside down and I did not force it on. Like I said I already did this once before. So believe it or not I was being careful putting it on but I did it somewhat blindly (I'm getting older so I should've had my glasses on) and it felt like it slid on right I even pulled it back off and tried it again before I thought I had it right.

So I don't know how this is happening. It melted one of the prongs on the fl drive. I know it has the guide on the bottom so I don't know how it can miss. I know from now on I'm going to plug the power cord in and then slide fl in it's slot. I tried connecting the molex power cord from DVD rom into HD but no change. I havn't done anything else since posting here. Accept pulling CMOS batt.

I can't believe this happened over a pretty much dead technology. Is there any safeties built into the hardware to save other parts from the floppy burn up? How can I test my other hardware to see if it is ok?

Thanks for replies guys.

I tried what was suggested above but no change. I can get to BIOS but that's it. After that it's all black accept where it says something like

Reboot or try new boot device.

Now what?

 

[eyeCpc]

The first thing to do then is dump the floppy drive since that is what is seeing an internal short there. Don't even try it again. Apparently that was your first mistake since the system ran normal without after the first attempt.

Besides dumping that you will want to start off with another supply in case any of the other wiring fused itself from the short. From there you can proceed to test each drive as you go along since a floppy drive isn't required unless you are starting the system by first booting off a 3 1/2". Those are cheap enough to replace anyways.

With a different supply in you can test the system there by first unplugging the optical drives along with the hard drvei to see if you get a normal post. After seeing that and shutting it off then try the hard drive to see if Windows loads up and no harm to that was seen. From there follow the same method for shutting it down and plugging the optical drive in to if that escaped any problems.

The first thing to do following the clearing of the cmos which was a waste of time is first setting time and date followed by the boot order. Make sure the hard drive is set as the first.

 

[WasTech]

Ye,

I should've mentioned that I did reset CMOS and set boot order. I still had a zip drive laying around so I set that as 1st boot but no change. The HD got warm when I plugged it in but did not boot. I really hope I didn't ruin that. Although I do have most stuff backed up. That was a good drive Maxtor 250GB 7200. I have to get a new PS and try again. I think I'll get another Antec.

 

[eyeCpc]

Antecs are generally good while not always being the ocer's dream. The floppy seeing the short was the likely problem being bad to start with.

I don't like the sound of the HD getting warm there. This is why trying out a different supply before anything else is damaged would be the idea. When setting the boot order the hard drive should have been set as the only boot device to see if that was still working.

One question comes to mind on all of this however. Was the system on when going to plug in the floppy drive? The arc seen when applying live power to a drive will flash burn a contact. This is why the system is off and even the breaker switch is usually switched off as well when going to connect any drive.

 

[WasTech]

Yea, I know not to have any power on when working on computers and you should have a ground wrist band on to. At least that's what we use to use back in 1999.

That's why my name is (Wastech) because I havn't kept up with the technology.

I also plugged my HD into my 2nd computer as slave just to see if I could access the files on it but it never read it. That worries me.

I use to do this with Win98 FAT systems. I'm hoping it didn't work because I have WinXP on that drive. I just don't know because I never tried it before with WinXP drive. I'm hoping it is because of NTFS. Could that be why?

 

[Baez]

Nope NTFS works the same way as FAT32 in that respect if you hooked the drive up to another computer with an NT OS. The possibility is there that your PSU fried more than your floppy drive.

 

[WasTech]

I was afraid of that.

Just wondering, My new ASUS MB A8V-x has the xtra 4 pin connector on it. I thought this only helped to power CPU. I read it is a 12v connector but what exactly is it for? Did this have anything to do with what happened?