Need help with my Floppy install *Groan*

[Gagan]

Hey guys so I guess I decided for God knows what reason to install a floppy drive in my computer.

I'm having some troubles now however after the installation. It does a boot up floppy seek just fine and in Windows it will see the disk but it will say it's not formatted.

Now I have some very valuble stuff on these disks and I know they aren't corrupted. I seriously think I'm missing something in Bios settings to make sure it gets detected, because when my 2 Hd's get detected and my DVD drive gets detected, my floppy does not show up, it's very odd!

I'd like to know what I'm doing wrong and what I need ot enable to get my floppy working (Boot up floppy seek is on)

I have a DFI LanParty UT SLI-DR Expert with a 4800+ X2 and 4gb rams

THanks

 

[Lord Evermore]

There's plenty of good reasons to install a floppy. Unless you're trying to build an extremely small form factor system and just need to use the space, want to avoid the cabling, or can't get a faceplate to match or hide it or paint it, there's no real reason not to have one. Being fanatically against floppies is stupid. They come in handy sometimes, they don't suck up resources that you desperately need elsewhere. USB floppy drives are definitely a nice compromise though.

Anyway, how do you know the floppies aren't corrupted if you don't have any other drives to test them on? It's entirely possible that this particular drive has corrupted them, not necessarily through a flaw in the drive itself but by the crap nature of floppy disks. I've put in disks that were fresh out of a box, formatted them, made it bootable and put some files on, and restarted, only to find that the disk got corrupted and track 0 is no longer readable. Floppies are far and away the worst possible place to store anything important and otherwise not backed up.

The floppy not being detected when your other drives are is very odd. There's normally only a few options in any BIOS for the floppy. The basic options to tell it that drive A is a 1.44MB 3.5 inch drive, bootup seek, "swap" floppies, and whether the controller is enabled. The floppy controller always gets assigned the same IRQ so that shouldn't be an issue. If the cable was reversed you just wouldn't be able to see the disk (and usually the drive light stays lit). Is the drive sitting behind a faceplate that hides the drive? If the eject button on such a faceplate were just slightly pushing in the eject button on the drive, that sometimes causes weird problems.

Your best bet may be to get some data recovery software and see if they can pull your files off the disk. The partition/formatting information may be damaged but the files might be fine.

 

[Gagan]

Lord Evermore

Thanks for the advice. I've concluded it IS connected properly the bootup seek comes up fine and when windows seeks the floppy it is corrupted

I clicked properites when the disk is in serted and it doesnt give any statistics for it.

I really need as uggestion to recceover this stuff I"m really worried.
I'lltry a spare disk alying around.

 

[SoundTheSurrender]

try a recovery program listed in the software section.

 

[Gagan]

Quick update.

When it asked me to format and I said yes I tried and it said there is no disk in drive A

Any more solutions

 

[JimPhelpsMI]

Hi, A: Floppy connects to the flat cable connector past the "Twisted" leads usually at the end of the cable. Floppy has been Cable Select since day one so don't move jumpers. It's always set for device 1 actually B:. The cable twist swaps it to A: If the lite stays on the cable is backward on one end or the other and will corrupt any floppy disk put into the drive. Cable stripe usually goes toward the power connector on the floppy and the lite is only on when you access the drive and momentarily during boot. Make sure the A: drive is set to 1.44 MB in the BIOS SETUP. If all this is correct the floppy drive is bad or the disks are bad. Maybe this will help someone someday.

Good Luck, Jim

Forgot to add: There may also be another place in the BIOS SETUP where the floppy port is disabled. Be sure that one is set to enabled.

Jim

 

[lxskllr]

I think it may be a problem with Windows XP. I had that problem on my old Dell. When I tried to use the floppy once it wouldn't work, so I RMAd the drive, installed the new one and it worked once or twice, then same problem again. I've read of a few other people with the same issue, and XP is always the common factor. I solved my problem by getting rid of the pos. Who needs to hear that stupid little thing grinding slowly away in this day of cds and thumb drives.

 

[Bozo Galora]

First of all, dont buy any floppy drives unless they are japanese manuf - Sony or Panasonic. Go to Fry's and get one of these - they are only like $14
Next, its very easy to misplace floppy cable molex one pin off - insert it while out of enclosure. Some drives do not "trap" the molex in place.
Make sure floppy cable on mobo is red facing down to bottom of case.
Then, the power cable and the data cable should be red wire adjacent to red wire
Now check in dev manager and see if it says "this device is working properly" in properties tabs
Also check in bios to see if theres some sort of a swap floppy drive letter thingy, and that floppy controller is ENABLED
Additionally, GetDataBack from www.runtime.org can recover floppy data from discs that have nt/coruupted file system
Or.......
http://www.programurl.com/floppy-zip-disk-rescue.htm
I have just found some floppies recently that were "dead" that were only about 2 years old - apparently from air pollution/heat (on Mylar) I assume, or possibly slow demagnetization.

And lastly, it is a little known fact, that unlike win 98, XP cannot properly format floppies.
http://www.programurl.com/format144.htm
(QUOTE)
Unconditionally formats a standard 1.44MB floppy disk in drive A:. Windows XP has a problem formatting demagnetized or corrupt diskettes: its format function only checks for diskette to be readable, and does not perform actual formatting if it is not. Format144 is a simple command-line tool that formats disktettes to the most common standard.

I am unclear on one point - you tried to format a FRESH disc and it said it couldnt?
HOW OLD are these discs????
If so, this would indicate a bios/cabling/config/HW prob.
You must be absolutely sure data cable is on all pins

 

[Gagan]

bump


These dics are pretty dan new

and yes the cables are all properly connected I'm using my DFI Cables man. Theya r PERFECT fits and the dents are interlocked in the drive and in the mobo.

So I don't know what's going on I'm going nuts. It's giving me the same error for both drives and I'm upset that it's happeneing becuase I really want my floppy to wokr.

I'm not RMA"ing the drive because I'm CERTAIN it is not the drive or the discs because i had an old floppy laying around it didn't make a diff

 

[Gagan]

update

when I hold either of hte drives at 90 degrees it seems to read these discs fine

anyone know the problem?

 

[Aluvus]

Originally posted by: Gagan
update

when I hold either of hte drives at 90 degrees it seems to read these discs fine

anyone know the problem?

Your drive is a bit "off". The read head is misaligned with the data tracks, but rotating the drive changes the effect of gravity.

I suggest you:

1. Set the drive at 90 degrees and copy everything off the floppies, which are horribly unreliable anyway - and since this stuff is apparently important, back it up immediately (say, onto another computer and onto CD).

2. Buy a new floppy drive.

 

[Lord Evermore]

Or give it a good realignment whack on the side with a mallet.

 

[Gagan]

both only do the 90 degree thing so I'm assuming I need to go ninety degrees to back my stuff up and start up fresh or something

how do I reconfigure

 

[Gagan]

bump

help please guys

 

[Raincity]

A couple shots of compressed air and a good whack is all I needed to get my Teac drive to work again.

 

[Gagan]

bump for help

 

[Gagan]

bump to top for stupid floppy

 

[NuAlphaMan]

Hey Gagan,

I just had the same problem. I was using the stock cable that came with my mobo. Yes, it was a perfect fit, but it did not work. I could not get windows to recognize the drive at all. It was coming up in the BIOS and I made sure everything pertaining to the drive was working. Fortunately, I had another floppy cable lying around. Try using another cable. If you are seeing it in the BIOS, but not in windows, more than likely, it's your cable giving you the problem.

 

[Gagan]

Didn't work man.

Any more suggestions?

 

[dealseaker]

Originally posted by: Aluvus

Originally posted by: Gagan
update

when I hold either of hte drives at 90 degrees it seems to read these discs fine

anyone know the problem?

Your drive is a bit "off". The read head is misaligned with the data tracks, but rotating the drive changes the effect of gravity.

I suggest you:

1. Set the drive at 90 degrees and copy everything off the floppies, which are horribly unreliable anyway - and since this stuff is apparently important, back it up immediately (say, onto another computer and onto CD).

2. Buy a new floppy drive.

This guy told you how to fix it, back everything up and buy a new floppy drive or a used floppy drive, change the cable like another person suggested if you want, but back everything up! problem is solved now if you copy everything to your desktop from the disks!

 

[Gagan]

i TRIED 2 different flopppies man I said this earlier and it's not working
Maybe something is wrong in bios but i highly doubt it... I Don't knwo what hteproblem is

 

[Gagan]

bump

 

[Gagan]

It appears the floppy drive holder in my V1000 hinders my FLoppies ability to perform

anyone heard of this?

 

[Arcanedeath]

Yeah my brother has a supper case made my Deer that makes his floppy drive quit if its attached to the case, My suggestion to you is to get a 20$ usb floppy drive and forget about it, I still have a 20+ year old Teac Floppy that came out of my Dads XT that I'm still using so you can add them to the reliable brands, Mitisumi is fairly good aswell.