Floppy drive

[nicolascage_68]

duz any 1 no of a program or anything of the likes 2 check ur puter system to find out why the floppy drive isnt workin eye have a dell deminsion 2350...new floppy drive in it--it recognizes the new floppy--but will not reed or rite 2 a floppy----any suggestions any 1 any an all input is gr8ly appreciated

[AmericanWoman]

We've tried everything we can think of, including replacing the floopy drive and running a diagnostic on it (in which it failed miserably) Any ideas on what could be causing this or any way we can hook it up differently to make it read and write? The computer is a Dell Dimension 2350 with windows xp home.

[xpgeek]

Wish I could help, but truth is I ripped out my floppy years ago and haven't had a need for one again since.

[Neo, Knock, Knock]

I encountered a similiar problem today, my portable hd could not be found. This is what I did to find it, maybe it will work for you and that floppy.
start, right click My Computer, Properties, Hardware, Device Manager and click on + under Disk Drive. This brings up all your drive and locate Floppy. Probably will tell you it is working fine. Right click the drive and scroll down to "scan for hardware chanes" and see if that helps.

[AmericanWoman]

Thanks Joe, we already tried that. We even replaced the drive thinking that the old one was faulty. It does tell us that the device is working properly but even after removing the driver and reinstalling and trying to update the driver, check for changes in hardware, etc., nothing has helped. I'm thinking that we'll have to mark this one down as a lost cause. We were trying to get it going as we have over 100 blank floppies sitting in the cupboard that we could be using to store stuff on. Oh well lol. Again thanks for your help, it was worth a shot anyways.

[Boeing_737]

It's two day's ago this thread ended but here I go.

Besides the floppy drive driver itself, you need to install a "standard floppy drive controller"

(I dont know if my English is good enough here, so look for a simular expression.)

With the hardware wizard you should be able to install it (I think).

Edit: I mean the Control Panel, Hardware. He looks for recently installed hardware, then comes up with two question:
did you already installed the hardware or did you not, mark the "yes" and then you can scroll down to the controller.

[Micron]

Also, I know this is dumb, but check that the floppy's you bought are formatted. If not go to the command prompt and type format :a and click OK.

Also, Does the drive light stay on? if so then the cable is in the wrong way, unlike a hard drive, the floppy cable will fit both ways, and as with all cables, the red or coloured line on the cable needs to be closest to the power cable.

Change the floppy if possible, they are a dime a dollar at second hand PC stores, also a portable floppy drive is another cheap solution. Failing that, copy the data from the floppy's on another machine and put it on disk and invest in a zip drive or an external HDD.

[Boeing_737]

...copy the data from the floppy's on another machine and put it on disk and invest in a zip drive or an external HDD.

Or, another solution: if you have a DVD/CD-burner around, burn the data on a CD (or DVD, depending on the amount of data you've gathered).

This will only work of course if your Dell's DVD/CD-reader is capable of reading DVD/CD-R(W).

[Micron]

I mentioned that in my post lol

'copy the data from the floppy's on another machine and put it on disk' Meaning CD or DVD.

[AmericanWoman]

We can easily save the data onto CD and/or DVD. I tried everything suggested already (prior experience with the floppy lol) but nothing has worked. I tried plugging both the new and old floppy into our other computer and both of them work fine. So my guess is that it has to do with the computer itself.

[Boeing_737]

I hardly dare to ask, but are the settings in the BIOS correct? (Diskette Controller, Diskette Write Protect and Floppy A 1.44 MB 31/2".)

Edit: if I remember well, the Write Protect must be set to disabled

[AmericanWoman]

Yes, I've already checked that a few times and the settings are correct. My suspision is that it's with the motherboard. After it was replaced the floppy never worked. No problem though, the floppy in our other computer works fine and we've found that by placing the files in the network folders we can still save them onto floppy disk on the other computer.

[xpgeek]

Not to change the subject, and just to throw out a personal thought cause I'm bored ;

Why does anyone still use a floppy? lol. You can only fit a meg n a half on it, thats not even an mp3, what good are they, office and document files i know but I just think its even easier to jus drop em all in a RAR file and email em and then jus log into the email on any computer in the world and there they are. Every repsectable totally free web email service now allows sending a 10 meg file, and while most auto remove attachments that are .exe's and .zip's too for some reason they almost all ignore a RAR.

Anyway, end of boredom induced rant, lol, sorry I have no helpful input for this thread, my pc has been floppyless for years now.

[zimagirl79]

Not to change the subject, and just to throw out a personal thought cause I'm bored ;

Why does anyone still use a floppy? lol. You can only fit a meg n a half on it, thats not even an mp3, what good are they, office and document files i know but I just think its even easier to jus drop em all in a RAR file and email em and then jus log into the email on any computer in the world and there they are. Every repsectable totally free web email service now allows sending a 10 meg file, and while most auto remove attachments that are .exe's and .zip's too for some reason they almost all ignore a RAR.

Anyway, end of boredom induced rant, lol, sorry I have no helpful input for this thread, my pc has been floppyless for years now.

I have Microsoft Money and to backup to removable media it only allows me to use a floppy. Of course those backups never seem to work when I need them - always something wrong with the floppy even tho I never touch it any other time.

[xpgeek]

Oh, well thats a good reason.

Does it allow you to backup to hard drive tho ? Just copy the files to a cd after it backs em up to the hard drive.

[zimagirl79]

Exactly what I do. It does an auto backup to hard drive and allows me to specify how often to backup to floppy. I don't do the floppy backup anymore because of all the trouble, just copy it to a cd-rw so I can overwrite it every time.

[Boeing_737]

Oh, well thats a good reason.

Well, I just posted a suggestion at the end of Micron's topic Recovering of a problem. (http://www.experiencewindows.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=569)

As you can see there are two methods of using the A-drive: with F2 and F6 in the pre-run of Windows XP Setup.

[AmericanWoman]

We still use the floppy disks especially for the kids. It helps keep all of their JUNK out of our computers. Not to mention we still have over 100 blank floppy disks still sitting in the cabinet collecting dust. Couldn't think of a better way to store the kid's stuff without spending a fortune for cd-r and cd-rw (which they usually get scratched up by the kids so we go through a lot of them.)

[Vairkjosa]

You didn't miss a jumper did you? On the new motherboard? I found one once that was plugged in but, was supposed to be removed for the floppy controller to work. Had something to do with the option for not having a floppy at all and still giving the "A" drive designation to the CD player instead.
Can't remember the particulars just now.

[AmericanWoman]

I don't usually mess with that sort of stuff. The motherboard was replaced by an authorized repairman since the unit was still under warranty. But now that you say that it's got me wondering. All other hardware seems to be working just fine. I'll have to do some research on the jumpers in there and then look to see how ours are.

[Vairkjosa]

Question the repairman about jumpers, if they thought you were going to have the new standard, it probably did not include a floppy. Neither of our laptops have floppy drives.
It's a chance, if not a fix, certainly couldn't hurt.