can not access floppy

Hi,

A friend of mine has a severe floppy disk access problem and I am trying to help him. He has a new PC, running XP, SP1 and the PC does not read the floppy. It's set up correctly in the BIOS, the device manager shows everything is fine, the floppy drive shows up in the folder list but the floppy is not accessable. He purchased an external USB floppy, same problem. He reinstalled XP, no change. He put a new MoBo in, same problem. Went through the troubeshooting routine, no change. Does someone have an idea what to look for next?

Thanks,

Ed

 

So it looks like you eliminated the floppy, MOBO, BIOS settings & OS...doesn't leave much, does it? Has he checked the MOBO site for updated BIOS/drivers? When re-installing XP, did he do a complete fdisk & format, or re-install overtop of the existing OS?

 

I'll check with him.

 

Here's some additional info:

It doesn't sound as if it were trying to read the floppy. A message simply appears saying "Insert a floppy in A.", even though one has been inserted. Replacing the floppy with another one produces the same message.

The green light is on constantly whether or not a floppy in inserted.

 

a constant green light usually indicates that the ribbon cable(data) is in upside down, try flipping it over in the back of the floppy drive.

 

I'll tell my buddy to check the ribbon cable, but that does not explain why the external USB floppy doesn't work either, or does it?

 

He has tried with the floppy cable in either direction, external USB disconnected, internal floppy disconnected, is doesn't make any difference at all. ISQ is set to 6, no other device has the same number, no conflicts there. The drives (int. + ext.) are in the folder list but the floppies are not accessable.

 

what if you put a known working internal floppy in its place?

 

He hasn't tried that because both, the internal and the external floppy drives are new.

 

Have you replaced the cable since replacing the mobo?

Does the external USB floppy come up as a drive letter? It should come up as B:\, not A:\. Check the device manager to see if the floppies are working properly.

Can you read disks when not working in Windows, like boot off a flopppy, if you have a bootable floppy disk. Also, floppy disks do not last forever, make sure you are using ones that actually work! Most new mobos support USB booting, so the USB floppy could be booted from to most likely.

Good Luck.

 

Hi,

I'm just wondering if there are any new ideas out there that might help us resolve this floppy issue?

The device manager shows both floppies (internal & USB) as present and working. Floppy cable has been replaced. When we enter a known good floppy into either drive, it says floppy is not formatted. When we click on format, the small format window pops up and that's where everything stops. No noise from either drive and nothing happens for hours.

Don't know what more to do.

Thanks,

Ed

 

I will ask a stupid question. Are you using 1.44 meg floppies? If you are using the older 720 k floppies, then Windows XP doesn't have the capability to format them, although it will read them.
Try both drives on another known working system, cables and all, and if they work that eliminates them as the problem. The internal floppy drive problem, I can relate to. I had a brand new floppy drive ( boxed from a local retail store ) that wouldn't work in a system that I was building, and it exhibited the same problems that you describe. The green light stayed on constantly, and I couldn't get it to work by swapping ends on the cable. I took a working floppy and cable from another system and it worked fine, with no issues. I gave the non working floppy drive to a friend that had bought a new pre-built system without a floppy drive, helped him install it - had to change to a longer cable that I had - and it worked fine in his computer, and the only thing changed was the cable, although the drive came with a new one.

 

Hi Corporal,

Yes, it was 1.44 MB floppy and it works on my system. The floppy incl. the cable worked on my friends system until he replaced the mobo and cpu. In addition, the external USB floppy shows the same symptoms, which excludes the internal drive/cable.

 

That being the case, then it sounds like a motherboard chipset driver issue or bios issue. Search the motherboard manufacturer's site for new drivers/updated bios. Before doing this, you might try deleting the floppy drive controller in Device Manager, rebooting, and let Windows reinstall it.

 

We already did the delete floppy thing in device manager, no change. I guess the BIOS/driver update might be our last resort, my friend is just reluctant to do that because that has screwed up one of his mobos before.

 

Just installed the newest BIOS version 1010, no change. Could the VIA chipset drivers be the culprit?

 

That is the only thing left that hasn't been tried or eliminated as a possibility.

 

We have installed the latest drivers, no change!

 

We uninstalled the entire Norton suite (because Norton had been the cause for this problem in another PC) but there's no change, the floppy can't be formatted.

Any new ideas here?

Thanks,

Ed