Cannibalizing a floppy cable

[Matt_H]

Possibly a silly question...

I've got a floppy drive to put in a PC. I've got a cable. The cable has 5 connectors on it: the 34pin motherboard connector, 2 34pin connectors and 2 old-style sockets. I only need the motherboard connector and one 34pin connector. Can I just clip off the superfluous cabling (room/airflow in the case is the concern)? Or is there some sort of wiring circuit that needs to be complete?

Thanks

[Matt_H]

:bump:

Anyone?

[coldfish]

All floppy cables Ive seen are just open circuits when nothing is plugged in, so removing part of the end of the cable makes no difference.  
Just chop off the superfluous part, so that you end up with the mobo connector and the first floppy connector.  I cant remember if this will make the drive act as floppy B, but it doesnt matter if it does, because you can usually swap that in the bios.

 

[Matt_H]

Excellent. Thank you.

[motorollin]

Wouldn't cannibalising the cable involving having it eaten by another floppy cable?  :-P

--
moto

[orange]

I think shortening floppy cable will work, but don't try that with IDE or SCSI cables because of reflections..
CoolerMaster (for eg.)  has a very nice rounded floppy cables with only one connector, have a look here

[coldfish]

Ive tried it with IDE and it works fine, especially on lower bandwidth devices like CDROM drives, infact I have a few single connector IDE cables out of an old Compaq desktop.

Ive even built a 1.5m long IDE cable for an arcade cabinet and it worked ok eventhough it defies the recommended standards, again low bandwidth, (I doubt it would work with a fast HD?)

SCSI is another story... ;-)

[orange]

I see, now I remember doing same thing when making 2,5"->3,5" converter for A1200 and it did work. Still its not recommended because IIRC those cables should have correct length that matches wavelength or something..

[Zac67]

I've done that with floppy, IDE and SCSI cables lots of times. No problems at all, but as has been pointed out, the floppy drive at the end of the cable (after the twist) is A:, the one in the middle B:. Swapping drive letters in BIOS setup does not work in all cases, so I'd recommend jumpering the drive to A: (all drives are factory jumpered B:). If there's no jumper you'll have to use the BIOS setting.
You can even redo the cable twist, but recrimping a cable is not really recommended - even though I've done it countless times and got away with it.