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From: brada@bardlover.Eng.Sun.COM (Brad Albom)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: My floppy wants to be beaten ?
Keywords: IBM AT, floppy
Message-ID: <7656@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: 8 Feb 91 18:23:28 GMT
Sender: news@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM
Lines: 23

OK, here's a strange one ...

Just finished putting together my PC AT (286) and it
has 1.2Meg 5 1/4" & 1.44Meg 3 1/2" floppies.
After startup, about half the time, the first time
I try to read either floppy drive I get the standard
"drive not responding" message. Sometimes re-trying
several times will eventually succeed, but it seems
if I bang the front of the drive, the read will
subsequently succeed almost all of the time.
Note that once a read succeeds on one drive, both
seem to work fine. It's just the very first read,
regardless of which drive, that wants to fail.

Things I've tried:
Resetting floppy cable (several times, at both ends)
Replacing the floppy cable
Different density floppies

Any thoughts out there ? 

-brad a.
email: brada@eng.sun.com