Disk in Drive A:\ is not formatted ?????

[leftywedge]

I am getting the following error:
The disk in Drive A is not formatted. do you want to formatted now?

This floppy drive was working perfectly yesterday, now it is acting up on me. The diskette is formated because I can use it on another PC with out a problem.

What is going on ?

Thanks

 

[edfair]

Drive failing to read is 1st guess. Possibly failing to turn. Note position of drive slot, insert it, and remove it. Has drive slot moved? Or track stepper may have locked up. Seeking properly? Try seek on POST and listen for stepping. Ed Fair
unixstuff@juno.com
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[thatrenowned]

Something to try:

1. Copy the files off the disk onto a computer which can read it.
2. Format the disk.
3. Copy the files back onto the disk.
4. Try loading the files onto the computer which wouldn't previously read it.

This works for me everytime it happens. Why it happens? I don't know...there could be any number of reasons.
The only thing I've noticed is that it only seems to happen with older disks, or ones which are used frequently.

Let me know if this helps...

 

[Smirnov]

I had this problem just yesterday actually.
Try pushing in the disk a little bit further, just push firmly and maybe it will click in a little better. This is what happened to me yesterday, it wasn't far enough in to read properly. If it is not this simple however then i do recommend the tip above with copying off and formatting the disk again. I think the reason why is that some sectors become a little fragile and are bordering on becoming just bad unusable blocks. When i ran a diagnostic program on the disk it found bad sectors anyway...
Hope it helps,
-scott...

 

[AbeStein]

I had similar problem - talked to a few people and came to the conclusion that the head was slightly out of alingment. Called Dell and they sent a new drive. If I had to pay for it, it would have been less that usd20.

The new floppy works fine now.

 

[Guest_imported]

I seem to have the same problem on occasion. My new PC has XP, and the one the diskette was created on has 98. I suspect it does have something to do with the quality and age of the diskettes. I never seem to have the problem when using a new diskette...