floppy drive

[Tdoan14]

i've had this problem for a while and now i decided that i want to fix it, my floppy drive seems to load correctly but whenever i put a floppy disk in it tells me to insert a floppy disk whenever there already is one... anyone know why?

 

[sboulema]

does the drive do it at all the disks? Try to test a lot of disks, floppy's go bad very quick. Try to remove your fdd in device manager and let xp detect it again.

 

[lurker2100]

Also check your cable. I've connected the floppy cable backwards plenty of times.

 

[sboulema]

if you gonna check the cables, the part with the twisted end needs to be in the fdd. like lurker said

 

[2z]

XP is not very good with floppies ..... IMHO

I have loads of floppies that still work on a 98 machine
but my other two XP machines wont have them
the floppies have to be brand new and good quality
& still die after about 5 uses

 

[Tdoan14]

i tried all those suggestions, still dont work... o well i dont really use it anyway

 

[Zedric]

If the light is on constantly the floppy cable is upside down. A classic misstake.

On many drives you acctually have to remove a piece of the PCB (pre-cut but not removed) to allow the cable to be put the right way (the notch on the cable). Completely bonkers if you ask me.

 

[scriptasylum]

Originally posted by Zedric
If the light is on constantly the floppy cable is upside down. A classic misstake.

On many drives you acctually have to remove a piece of the PCB (pre-cut but not removed) to allow the cable to be put the right way (the notch on the cable). Completely bonkers if you ask me.

Yeah, I've come across that too. I remember thinking to myself that I MUST have something wrong if I have to CUT the drive connector! But, that is what helped.

To Todoan14: Have you tried a different cable? They usually don't go bad unless you're man-handling them but you never know. Also, some cables have at more than two connectors (which of course most people do not need). You could try using a cable with just the correct amount of connectors.

I personally haven't had any problems with my floppy drive and it is ~4 years old. Maybe they just don't make them like they used to?

 

[baser5nature]

why on earth would problems with a floppy drive be within XP...

I think Floppy drives are probably the easiest thing to make compatible within any OS... it's not like the capacity of a floppy doubles every 3 months like hard disks do, resulting in redesign of the hardware interface...

I think that is absolutely ridiculous that you would blame it on xp... try getting a brand new floppy drive... i did that for my girlfriend who had floppy troubles...(the same problem described in the original post) and guess what... a brand new drive... exact same model (panasonic of course) fixed the problem and no problems have reappeared within the last 6 months... and my girlfriend uses floppies all the time back and forth from school...

More than likely these types of problems are based on the fact that nobody really wants floppy drives anymore... and i'm even hesitant to pay 15-20 bucks if i need a new one in the future... they are probably made of the absolutely cheapest materials ever... and in terms of cleanliness? floppy drives have to be the most succeptible to dust and dirt storage system ever (aside from those huge floppies from the electronic era known as the 80's...)