Floppy light comes on for no apparent reason

[Liquidlen]

I am not an engineer so I cannot supply you with technical specifics. Also keep in mind that there is an ongoing debate on this subject matter, and I have no intention of opening that debate, nor will I participate.
One of the main reasons for seperating Roms from the HDD, is because during certain types of data I/O, the ROM must slow the transfer rates .I/O will default to the slowest item connected on the same IDE channel.
There are any number of scenarios that you can see if you use some imagination. Depending upon which HDD your programs,O/S, Page file etc are placed and where data is being accessed from, have significant impact on the overall performance of your machine.
I am sure that , to configure a machine to create the possibility of more bottlenecks than is necessary, is a basic mistake.
I understand that your machine has been working fine for your purposes, there is always the philosophy " If it ain't broke don't fix it"
Generally accepted protocol says not to use your configuration.
BTW I also suspected there was some link between this and your original problem. Since you have solved your problem, I may be wrong.

 

[Ipsofacto]

Did it ever occur to you guys that D drive and A drive are tied together. I have one older machine where my tape drive is tried to my A drive so I cannot use both at the same time. Everytime I run a tape, my A drive light comes on just to tell me not to use it.

 

[barebear]

Hi Liquidlen and Ipsofacto,

Liquidlen,

I use Plextor maybe 4 times a year to burn Ghost images to DVD from D: using DVD +R ( was told I'd have trouble w/ -R). I use TDK about once a month just to burn data from desktop or D:---I'm not a movie,music, or gaming type--don't have a game in the computer.
Since there can only be 4 IDE devices on the system, my only alternative configuration could be to physically switch D: to become primary slave to C:, and switch Plextor to become secondary IDE slave to TDK.

AM MOST INTERESTED in your comments re that alternative, but going to work--now 130PM Sun PST and not back to system till 1030PM.

Rick--if you're reading this, your comments too please--I've always been told to NEVER make 1 HD slave to another?

Just so everyone knows--system is 2.4 Athlon w/ 1GB Mushkin BLack High Performance DDR ram on Asus A7N8X deluxe.

Ipsofacto,

Good point but my floppy is on its own cable; you'll see rest of configuration if you look a couple of posts back.

Best to all, Peter