Every IDE cable has the pink cable facing you. Floppy drives... the loop goes on top and that makes the pink cable on a properly marked cable face towards the inside of the case; opposite of the others.

You'd know if it's wrong if the light just stays on.

Now, also... make sure that the motherboard's BIOS even knows that the floppy is even there. As far as the rest of your problems; just sounds like the proper parts aren't completely hooked up. The plugs causing shorts is a very bad sign though. I'd recheck all connections.