Diskette drive 0 seek failure, Please insert a disk into drive a:

  • Thread starter Thread starter Roger Lepine
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Roger Lepine

Hello,

I recently bought a Dell Dimension 4600 computer off of ebay.
It was about 2/3rds of the new price, but it came with no floppy.
Dell sales assured me that any floppy would work, so I bought
a cable and floppy from the local store.

The first time I installed it, I got it wrong. The
light stayed on, so the cable was reversed. I
corrected this. I also changed the BIOS as the
owner's manual said. But there are still problems.

When I boot, there is a message:
Diskette drive 0 seek failure

The system will boot to XP. In explorer, it will
find the A: drive. I will insert a floppy. But
when I click A:, I will always get a message:

Please insert a disk into drive a:

The cables are tight.

Interestingly enough, there is no way to change the BIOS
to boot from floppy. It would give the floppy as an option.
Only the CD, and the hard drive.

System information will also find the drive.
It just doesn't work.

Does anyone have any ideas to solve this problem?


Thanks
 
Hello,

I recently bought a Dell Dimension 4600 computer off of ebay.
It was about 2/3rds of the new price, but it came with no floppy.
Dell sales assured me that any floppy would work, so I bought
a cable and floppy from the local store.

The first time I installed it, I got it wrong. The
light stayed on, so the cable was reversed. I
corrected this. I also changed the BIOS as the
owner's manual said. But there are still problems.

When I boot, there is a message:
Diskette drive 0 seek failure

The system will boot to XP. In explorer, it will
find the A: drive. I will insert a floppy. But
when I click A:, I will always get a message:

Please insert a disk into drive a:

The cables are tight.

Interestingly enough, there is no way to change the BIOS
to boot from floppy. It would give the floppy as an option.
Only the CD, and the hard drive.

System information will also find the drive.
It just doesn't work.

Does anyone have any ideas to solve this problem?


Thanks
Click to expand...

Probably too late to send it back.

Since the bios is not recognising the floppy in setup and you have
tryed connecting new cables it sounds like a hardware or firmware
problem.

You could check the connector where the cable plugs in to see if there
are any broken pins. You also could also clear the cmos (if it is not
too complicated) then go into setup afterwards and take the defaults.
If you don't have a manual to identify the proper jumper pin removing
the battery for an hour usually works.
 
after you changed the cable round does the light come on then off at boot?...do you have floppy seek at boot enabled in bios(if they
give you permission to)? you could have a bunk drive or the cable is still off a pin to the left /right? the power cable is on
wrong?
all guesses of course
 
Roger said:
Hello,

I recently bought a Dell Dimension 4600 computer off of ebay.
It was about 2/3rds of the new price, but it came with no floppy.
Dell sales assured me that any floppy would work, so I bought
a cable and floppy from the local store.

The first time I installed it, I got it wrong. The
light stayed on, so the cable was reversed. I
corrected this. I also changed the BIOS as the
owner's manual said. But there are still problems.

When I boot, there is a message:
Diskette drive 0 seek failure

The system will boot to XP. In explorer, it will
find the A: drive. I will insert a floppy. But
when I click A:, I will always get a message:

Please insert a disk into drive a:

The cables are tight.

Interestingly enough, there is no way to change the BIOS
to boot from floppy. It would give the floppy as an option.
Only the CD, and the hard drive.

System information will also find the drive.
It just doesn't work.

Does anyone have any ideas to solve this problem?


Thanks
Click to expand...
In addition to the other suggestions: When you attached the floppy
cable, did you attach it so that the connector with the twist is
attached to the drive??? Just a thought.
 
do you have pin one to pin one ??

On my board it's the first pin to the rear of the connector looking from the
front.
Although providing you have the right type cable it should only fit one way
in any case.
The cable should be one which is split into two parts at one end, and that
is the end that connects to the drive.
If you are not able to change the Bios, cant see how your'e going to assign
the drive anyway, try Dell again to find out how this is accomplished !!

or failing that you might have to go to comp shop see what they advise !

Best of luck
 
Snooky said:
do you have pin one to pin one ??

On my board it's the first pin to the rear of the connector looking from the
front.
Although providing you have the right type cable it should only fit one way
in any case.
The cable should be one which is split into two parts at one end, and that
is the end that connects to the drive.
If you are not able to change the Bios, cant see how your'e going to assign
the drive anyway, try Dell again to find out how this is accomplished !!

or failing that you might have to go to comp shop see what they advise !

Best of luck
Click to expand...

Sounds like a bad floppy drive to me.
If you corrected the cable reversal problem and the light came on and
then went out it is probably correct and my guess would be that the
floppy drive was bad.
 
Well, here is the solution.

I ordered the appropriate floppy drive from Dell.
$20.00 to order, but $8.00 to ship it!

The drive also came with a short floppy cable.
And, also important, it also came with the odd bracket
that is required to actually make the floppy drive fit into
it's esoteric hardware.

And, after I rebooted a few times, the BIOS then gave me
the option to boot from floppy, which I set.

It's working perfectly fine. About time! I certainly
expect the floppy drive to work with no fooling around.
 
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