Floppy drive

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Guest

Each time I place a floppy in the drive and go to open it, It states it is
not formatted would I like to do this now, I click no as I beleive this wipes
the disk or is that wrong. I think there must be a problem, with the drive do
you think I need a new one?
 
The cause may be a physical problem with either the floppy drive, the cable
connections (either or both ends) or the floppy drive controller. I have
this as an intermittent fault. I've installed another FDD, put the FDD to
another computer and changed the cable (several times) but the fault
returns. I'm not too concerned as I don't really have a need to use floppy
disks. This begs the question whether or not you could possibly use a
re-writable CD as an alternative?

Regards.

Bill Ridgeway
Computer Solutions
 
rocketrod777 said:
Each time I place a floppy in the drive and go to open it, It states
it is not formatted would I like to do this now, I click no as I
beleive this wipes the disk or is that wrong.
Click to expand...


No, it's not wrong. You are correct.

I think there must be a
problem, with the drive do you think I need a new one?
Click to expand...


Is this a floppy that was written with a previous version of Windows, such
as Windows 98? If so, it's probably the media-descriptor byte problem. Read
here: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=140060

The solution to the problem is to format a new floppy on Windows XP, and
take it and the one you couldn't read to a computer running Windows 98. Copy
the contents of the original floppy to the newly-formatted one, which should
now be readable under Windows XP
 
Thanks guys for your help, I will try them things. The computer is only a
year old and it had windows xp professional on it but I found it was a
pirated copy so I bought an original xp home edition.
 
No, it's not wrong. You are correct.
The solution to the problem is to format a new floppy on Windows XP,
and
take it and the one you couldn't read to a computer running Windows 98.
Copy
the contents of the original floppy to the newly-formatted one, which
should
now be readable under Windows XP
Click to expand...
HI Ken!
I am sure you are right, but how is it then, that I can read and write
any 5.25 inch floppy disk, and also all 3.5 inch floppy disks, on my
XP Pro machine?
Of course I have the appropriate disk drives installed, but done
nothing special to the system.
I am not complaining mind you, just curious!
Cheers,
 
HI Ken!
I am sure you are right, but how is it then, that I can read and write
any 5.25 inch floppy disk, and also all 3.5 inch floppy disks, on my
XP Pro machine?
Click to expand...


Any and all? I doubt that. It depends on whether they have been formatted
with the media descriptor byte. If the floppies were formatted on an XP
machine, they should be fine, as are some of the pre-formatted floppies that
are bought. The web-site I provided says "Some older preformatted floppy
disks do not contain a media descriptor byte. Older product disks may also
not have the media descriptor byte." Note that it says "some," not "all,"
and "may also not," not "do also not."
 
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