Floppy Drive Problems and XP

[mksa]

This problem is affecting 3 of 4 my computers running XP pro with SP-1. I can insert a floppy disk and it isn't recognized as being formatted; and if given the option to format, the formatting fails. This occurs with new formatted disks as well as with known good disks. Sometimes, for whatever reason it decides it likes a disk and will read it. I've tried three different floppy drives on one computer to no avail. I've tried disabling Norton's 2004 and that has no affect. However, I can take the same bootable floppy that won't read while the computer's running and boot the computer with it succesfully, which leads me to believe that its OS related. Any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[temporello]

I've experienced problems with floppies and XP myself.
Error correction failed with XP while Windows98's scandisk solved the problem on the same floppy in the same machine...
Also in my new amchine many times floppies are recognized at the second asking for some reason.
I'm transferring files on a flash drive now to avoid the hassle...

 

[JGillespie]

We have a site with 1000+ xp machines and this problem is a nightmare for us. We keep a couple of 98 machines on the go just to read disks that xp will not touch, scandisk doesn't always work though.

We use OnTrack recovery software to get data back when nothing else will read them.

if anyone has a definitive solution to this my 4000+ users would be most grateful!!!! (so would the people who pay my wages)

Jamie Gillespie
Senior IT Technician
South Cheshire College
j-gillespie@s-cheshire.ac.uk

 

[bcastner]

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;140060

 

[JGillespie]

thanks bcastner,

read that before - it does not however explain why or help to prevent the fact that a disk can work for weeks/months and then suddenly become innaccessible.

Jamie Gillespie
Senior IT Technician
South Cheshire College
j-gillespie@s-cheshire.ac.uk

 

[mksa]

bcastner,
I had already read this Knowledge Base article, and the first suggestion to resolve the problem is to format the disk. However, any of the disks that can't be read in my computer also refuse to be formatted. As far as the workaround, I don't think I'd want my wife or kids trying it out.

 

[bcastner]

thread779-453058

 

[jurgen36]

We have the same problems with over 400 systems. Our fix was to set the floppy drives to 2.8 Mb in the Cmoss, this seem to work on about 80% of the machines. Why this works I do not pretend to know. All the drives are 1.4 Mb. The funny thing is that at first the machines run OK and then refuse to read the floppy's and ask for a reformat. Some of our systems are dual boot Win98/Xp, as it does not happen if they are booted in Win98 I suspect that there is another bug in the Xp coding. Regards and god luck.

Jurgen