Can't get floppy disk drive to work.

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kemperhills

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I hope that I put this in the right place.

Ok, I know that floppy's are are outdated, but I have a bunch of files that I created years ago when floppy was all you had.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 formatted 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. I took a floppy to an IBM computer in another room and it opened. I also took the USB floppy drive to the IBM and connected it to a USB port and it opened the files. The older floppy's were created on a computer running 98SE. The computer I now have is running XP.

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.
 
Start>right click on My Computer>Manage>Device Manager. What does it say for the floppy devices?
 
floppy drive

ive found sometimes that malware has caused some drivers to corrupt. go to view in your device manager and view hidden devices and see if there are any non working drovers in this area as well. particularly under the non plug and play devices.
 
Re: floppy drive

ive found sometimes that malware has caused some drivers to corrupt. go to view in your device manager and view hidden devices and see if there are any non working drovers in this area as well. particularly under the non plug and play devices.

Ok, thanks.
 
Re: floppy drive

Maybe try a library computer and transfer all the files to a usb disk if you cant get it working on your computer
 
Why would you use floppies in the first place...

Why haven't you bought usb drives. They are pretty cheap and easy to use for data usage. Don't bother with the floppy stuff man. Keep up with the times.
 
Why would you use floppies in the first place...

Why haven't you bought usb drives. They are pretty cheap and easy to use for data usage. Don't bother with the floppy stuff man. Keep up with the times.

Because I have them already, bunches of them, and I have the floppy drive and simply don't won't to throw them away. I like flash drives, have one in fact that has been washed and dried twice and still works as good as the day I bought it.

But I have all this perfectly good storage media and I don't won't to throw it away.
 

Because I have them already, bunches of them, and I have the floppy drive and simply don't won't to throw them away. I like flash drives, have one in fact that has been washed and dried twice and still works as good as the day I bought it.

But I have all this perfectly good storage media and I don't won't to throw it away.

I understand that, but one USB stick will hold more then all your floppies combined. The reality of the situation is you are using an obsolete technology to store information, any that is a bad idea. It makes things much more difficult when things do go wrong, as you are seeing right now. I would get your information off the floppies and put them on a 4 gig usb stick or just store them on your computer and they will be backed up with whatever you use for a backup solution.
 
I understand that, but one USB stick will hold more then all your floppies combined. The reality of the situation is you are using an obsolete technology to store information, any that is a bad idea. It makes things much more difficult when things do go wrong, as you are seeing right now. I would get your information off the floppies and put them on a 4 gig usb stick or just store them on your computer and they will be backed up with whatever you use for a backup solution.

I understand you logic and I agree that it is probably true in all aspects, I won't argue with it. I just want the floppy to work so that I can use the disks. Is it the best thing to do, probably not. And thanks for the link
 
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