Upgrade 4: Adding an Internal Floppy or Zip Drive

Upgrade #4: Adding an Internal Floppy or Zip Drive

Some new PCs come with no removable media, save for the now ever-present CD-ROM drive. If you want to use old-fashioned 3.5-inch floppy disks, you'll have to add your own floppy drive.

Naturally, the easiest way to add a floppy drive is with a USB-compatible external model. However, many of us are more comfortable inserting our floppies into the front of the system unit; if this is you, you'll want to do an internal installation.

note

Another popular type of removable storage media is Iomega's Zip drive. The instructions for adding a Zip drive are identical to those for adding a floppy drive.

To add a floppy drive to your machine (or to replace an existing floppy drive), just follow these steps:

1. Close Windows and power off your PC.

2. Disconnect your PC from its power source.

3. Open the system unit case.

4. Locate an empty 3.5-inch drive bay and pop out the corresponding plastic face on the front of the system unit. (Or, if you're replacing an existing drive, identify and remove the old one taking care to unplug the power and data cables first.)

5. Locate a free power cable and data cable.

6. Slide the new drive into the bay and align it with the hole in the front of the system unit.

   caution

   

   Most floppy connectors aren't keyed to prevent improper connection. If your drive light stays on all the time, the connector is reversed; fix the problem by reconnecting the cable the other way.

7. Attach the power and data cables to the drive. (Some data cables might have connectors for both 3.5-inch and the older 5.25-inch drives; use the 3.5-inch connector.)

8. Fasten the drive to the bay.

9. Reconnect your PC to an AC power supply, power it up, and test the drive. (Formatting a new disk is a good test.)

10. Assuming everything works okay, reinstall the system unit cover.