How to Install an Internal Floppy Disk Drive

Video Transcript

"You know I remember back when you had 5 and 1/4 inch floppies. Well now you have 3 and 1/2 inch floppies and they're kind of becoming obsolete but you still encounter them especially if you are in the collegic environment. My name is James, Computer Hardware Training Coordinator for InterConnection, and I am going to show you how to install a 3 and 1/2 inch floppy into your computer. Now the first thing you are going to do is buy your floppy drive. The second thing you want to do is make sure you have a place to install your floppy drive. Now some computers might have a little block off plate right here, a little plastic plate that you can take out so you can install the floppy drive. Others might have a little bezel that just has a little opening for the top and a little button right here. Either way you want to make sure you have a place to put that drive. In this particular computer we have a cage that we have to install the floppy drive into so the first step will be removing that cage. The first thing we want to do is move the handle, thus releasing it and slide the cage out and as you can see we have the holes right here to mount our floppy drive. Next we take our floppy drive, insert it into the cage, lining up those holes just like so. We take the screws, place them in. One thing to keep in mind when you are installing these screws is that this is very thin metal. Do not over tighten them. Now our floppy drive is installed in a cage and it is secure. Now we have to put the cage back in the machine, make sure it latches back, push it forwards, push our latch forwards, locks in place. Now the floppy cable can easily be installed upside down. If you install it upside down it is not going to work. The easy way to tell if you have accidentally done this is the light on the floppy drive will stay off. It will just be solid on all the time it is just the floppy drive telling you that you have installed the cable upside down. Now we are going to install the floppy cable, being careful not to bend any of the pins. There we are. Now the power cable. Notice the power cable looks like this and it has this little guide right here for that bottom plate so we install this like so being careful again not to bend any pins. My name is James and I just showed you how to install a floppy drive."