[CentOS] floppy drives

Mon Apr 8 16:40:55 UTC 2013
John R Pierce <pierce at hogranch.com>

On 4/8/2013 7:58 AM, m.roth at 5-cent.us wrote:
> Good thought... but I think I had one of them disconnected before I took
> my system down yesterday and connected both. I will note that the 5.25"
> one's light does seem to stay on, regardless.

OH.   another rusty old memory.  if you plugged a floppy cable in upside 
down (only possible if the cable wasn't keyed, but I remember quite a 
few that werent), it grounded both drive select and write select, and 
the drive would write nulls (or something) all over any track that was 
seeked to, without even sector formatting.   this would, of course, 
erase any disk you inserted.  also, the LED would stay on.




-- 
john r pierce                                      37N 122W
somewhere on the middle of the left coast