View Full Version : floppy drive acts strange
Unregistered
12-09-2002, 08:17 AM
No matter wich floopy drive I use in my computer, everytime I insert a floppy (formatted) I get the message: Disk is not formatted, do you want to format now?
Cables are working and the floppy drive works in any other computer...... HELP!
IronSerif
12-09-2002, 08:19 AM
I've had this problem a few times with one certain disk. Never really figured out what the problem was, but my guess is that it was the disk. I used other disks and I never really had that problem, so I just threw the old disk away. Sorry I couldn't help ya man:(
Ioman
12-09-2002, 08:19 AM
Originally posted by Unregistered
No matter wich floopy drive I use in my computer, everytime I insert a floppy (formatted) I get the message: Disk is not formatted, do you want to format now?
Cables are working and the floppy drive works in any other computer...... HELP!
Is the floppy drive light always on? If not and you are 100% sure everything is hooked up correctly, chances are that your drive is probably bad. A new one shoudn't costs more than maybe $15 bucks. So I would try a new one out.
it's not the drive cause it does work in any other computer....
IronSerif
12-09-2002, 08:30 AM
Good question, is the light on all of the time? If it is, it's possible that the cable is on backwards, that's happened to me many a times :)
But if I recall correctly, when I had the cable backwards, it wouldn't even read the floppy, so there was no way that it could have asked me to reformat the disk...
that's right, soo, any other sugggestions? maybe it is something in the bios???
IronSerif
12-09-2002, 08:38 AM
Could be possible...can't think of anything off of the top of my head right now though :( I would consider buying a new floppy drive as an alternative though
Ioman
12-09-2002, 08:39 AM
Originally posted by rvz
that's right, soo, any other sugggestions? maybe it is something in the bios???
Bad floppy drive controller on the motherboard? Maybe that floppy drive is just not compatible with your motherboard?
Is this a new system you are building, or one that has been working already for a while?
yeah, i think I will...... thanks anyway.....
IronSerif
12-09-2002, 08:40 AM
You also said that the floppy drive works in any other computer?
How about switching flopy drives?
Have you tried using another floppy drive in the computer that is having problems with the current floppy drive?
Yes, I tried to use another one from another compu, that didn't work inmy computer either....
The one with the problems was working in this computer correctly before...
IronSerif
12-09-2002, 09:02 AM
This is prob. a stupid question, but do you remember doing anything different in between from the time it was working to the time it stopped working?
as far as I remember, nop......
llbbl
12-13-2002, 08:03 AM
Originally posted by rvz
as far as I remember, nop......
I am thinking that it might have something do with the file system on your computer. Maybe if you upgraded from WinME to XP or switched from Fat32 to NTFS it might cause this problem.
---
http://www.acmehowto.com/howto/pc/hardware/floppydisk/diagnose.htm
Have you changed disk densities? Like going from 1.44 to HDD 2.44 disks.
I went ahead and sent them a question about your problem that you are having. I will let you know if they respond and what they said.
llbbl
12-13-2002, 08:11 AM
Try asking your question on this site. They might know what is going on better than we do.
Be sure to post a follow up because we are interested in hearing the solution to your problem.
http://computing.net/windowsxp/wwwboard/forum/16800.html
Interesting blurb's
---
... The format on XP is exactly the same as any other version of Windows. more than likely the write heads on his XP floppy drive are out of alignment and the 98 floppy is not reading the information. The reverse situation could be true ie the 98 heads could be out of alignment. ...
I have used Windows 2000 for a long time and its structured close to Windows XP. When I use windows format, under all the options are two checkboxes. One says quick format, the other says Enable Compression (its greyed out unless the format type is NTFS, which isn't allowed on floppies. Anyways, that quick format does the same thing the "full format" did before, just in reverse. i.e. if you want a quick format (just deleated the 'index' record on the floppy) you check it. If you want to do a full format (formats the entire disk and will also format it in a way that most data recovery programs can't find anything on it), you uncheck it. Don't believe me, take a disk you don't want, or is blank. Run format and try it with that option both checked and unchecked. You'll notice that if it's unchecked, it takes considerably longer to format it, that's because it's doing a full format.
llbbl
12-13-2002, 08:13 AM
Here is a thread that is the same problem you are having. They say to clean the drive and try a bunch of disks.
http://computing.net/windowsxp/wwwboard/forum/4379.html
llbbl
12-13-2002, 10:09 AM
Ok we need to know this.
"What happens if you let it go ahead and format it, will it work then?"
The first step to finding a solution.
That is what the guy from the website asked.
problem solved after upgrading to windows 2k p3,
thank you all fo ryour suggestions!
IronSerif
12-13-2002, 08:53 PM
Hey glad it all worked out man :)
llbbl
12-14-2002, 09:29 AM
The guy from the website had this to say.
I have heard of floppy problems that resolve with an upgrade but I've
never heard a reasonable explanation of why. A floppy drive and the
software are pretty basic and I don't think much has changed since
Win95. Usually a "format" error results from a misaligned drive and when
you format it and it works, that is often a confirmation. However, the
formatted floppy then won't be readable in a properly formatted drive.
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