On-going floppy problem

[LBL626]

I am having an on-going problem with a floppy drive in a Tri-Star computer. The specs are:

Tri-Star StarStation Pentium II 350mHz Win 98se
Tyan S1846 Tsunami ATX Motherboard
128mb PC 100 ram (2-64 mb DIMM)
ELSA Synergy Permedia2 8mb AGP Video Card
3Com Etherlink3 3C590 BusMaster PCI Ethernet Adapter
IBM Deskstar 10.1gb, UDMA Harddrive
Mitsumi 32x CDROM

The problem that persists is that the floppy drive will work in DOS, but not in Windows. I have tried swapping out floppies and that didn't work. I have tried switching cables and that didn't work. I went on the Tyan website and downloaded a flash BIOS utility and flashed the BIOS and then cleared the CMOS and then went about setting the correct settings. I tried the floppy and it worked in both DOS and Windows. When I put the cover on and moved it back to its original workstation the floppy did not work and locked up the computer. When I say locked up, I was in Explorer checking the files on A: and it locked up, I had to hit Alt Control Delete and the message box stated Explorer Not Responding, so I clicked on End Task. I then brought the computer back to my office and then removed the cover and the floppy drive worked.

Currently, the floppy drive will only work in Safe Mode with the cover on or off !!

The only suggestions as to why this is happening that I can see, would be that something on the motherboard is doing this or a cabling issue or possibly (but doubtful) the cover to the computer has static on it.

Any suggestions as to why this might be occurring would be very appreciative.

LBL626

 

[paulwood]

A wild guess is that there may be some security policies in place that prevent use of the floppy drive, and only become effective when booted into full Windows.

 

[LBL626]

Where would they be listed?

 

[paulwood]

I was kinda hoping it might jog a memory somewhere! This would have to be a third party patch applied by the company, I don't think that the standard Microsoft policies would be able to do that.

Other possibilities are a Windows utility or driver that clashes with the Windows floppy driver (bizarre, but it's a bizarre problem) since safe mode only loads very basic drivers.

I suppose it is just possible that a virus or crash could have messed with the floppy drivers, have you tried deleting the floppy controller and floppy drive in Device Manager and re-booting? I've no idea what happens when you do this, I would hope Windows would find them and reinstall.

 

[LBL626]

I tried deleting the floppy drive and the floppy controller in device manager and it still only works in safe mode.

 

[paulwood]

It really points to some sort of driver/utility clash, but what it may be I have no idea, sorry.

 

[edfair]

Any devices with error messages? How about looking at IRQ sequences in device manager and io addresses. Would normally assume that something is trying to use the IRQ.
Can you lock down the IRQ in cmos for legacy device? It will keep plug and pray from touching it. Ed Fair
efair@atlnet.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.

 

[LBL626]

No devices with errors, no irq conflicts. I am thinking that it is the onboard controller at this point. I swapped hard-drives and it wasn't a boot sector virus because the floppy worked with the hard-drive in another computer. So it is either something with the motherboard or the floppy drive itself.
Any advice or opinions would be helpful

 

[Zorlod]

I have seen before that a floppy only worked with the cover ON, the reason why was because while putting the cover back on, someone had accidently put one of the screws through the case and into the floppy cable and put a very tiny hole through it. With the cover on, the screw filled the hole in and allowed data to transfer through the cable, with it off, no screw, no data transfer. Dont think this really applies to your problem, but just wanted to point out that sometimes theres some things that make absolutely no sense in the computer world. Sometimes the answer lies where you would least expect it

 

[LBL626]

Couldn't lock down the IRQ in cmos for legacy device because the setting that the floppy uses was not available.
It automatically assigns it IRQ 6 and DMA 2. Both were not available to change.

At this point I am going to try adding an additional floppy drive controller unless somebody has any suggestions.

 

[BBsAmazon]

It's obvious the drive is functional since you've been able to make it work and the problem seems to arise when you put the cover back on.
Some Dell computers have been known to have problems with floppy drives not working with the front panel and having to replace that panel. Perhaps it's the same with your Tri-Star system. OEM computers have problems all their own sometimes. I went to the Tri-Star website and it looks like you can email them. There wasn't any suggestion of having to pay...

 

[LBL626]

I contacted technical support through Tri-Star before I posted any messages on here. They told me that they had no idea what I was experiencing. I went ahead and ordered another floppy drive controller. I'll see what happens when I install it.