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The Help Desk => Computer Related Discussions & Questions => Topic started by: Chris_ on May 03, 2011, 09:05:41 PM

Title: Can't get floppy disk drive to work.
Post by: Chris_ on May 03, 2011, 09:05:41 PM

Ok, I know that floppy's are are outdated, but I have a bunch of files that I created years ago when floppy was all you had.

I had an IDE floppy in my computer that I was using and one day I tried to open some floppy files and it said that the disc wasn't formated and did I want to format the disc.

I got a brand new floppy and it said the same thing. I tried to format it and got a message that said Windows could not format the disc.

So, I thought maybe the old IDE floppy drive had gone belly up. I ordered a new USB floppy drive from TigerDirect and installed it. It does the same thing.

Can anyone help me get this floppy drive working so that I can access the files.

I have an HP Compaq dc7600 small form computer running XP Pro, SP 3. The floppy drive that I ordered is a PowerUp G54-8016 external USB floppy drive.

Any help would be appreciated.

I don't know why the IDE floppy was working then quit, and now the new floppy won't work.

Title: Re: Can't get floppy disk drive to work.
Post by: Chris_ on May 03, 2011, 09:50:21 PM

Just a guess, check your BIOS or Windows settings... maybe there is a compatibility issue somewhere.

Or buy another floppy drive. :(

Title: Re: Can't get floppy disk drive to work.
Post by: Thor on May 03, 2011, 10:33:30 PM

Could be the floppies, too. Some used to be formatted at 720 KB and others at 1.44 MB. The 720s wouldn't work on a drive set up for 1.44s (or something like that) I haven't used a floppy drive in a long while. Also, magnetic media does lose data over time. There could be corrupt sectors on the floppies or who knows what could be wrong with them??

Title: Re: Can't get floppy disk drive to work.
Post by: Chris_ on May 03, 2011, 10:34:40 PM

I haven't used a 720k floppy for a couple of decades.  How old are these disks anyway?

Title: Re: Can't get floppy disk drive to work.
Post by: LC EFA on May 04, 2011, 01:55:25 AM

If you've used anything but a brand new floppy in that new drive there's a chance you've gummed up the heads on it.

If the new drive reads a new floppy - then you need to use windows checkdisk to attempt to fix or attempt to fix the old one - and then do a surface scan.  Warning though that some files really don't like being "rearranged" as the surface scan repair option tends to do - in particular things like zip archives.

Just myself - I'd kick myself for not transferring the data off the floppy earlier and accept the loss of data.