Floppy disk drive trouble!

Status
Not open for further replies.

ire.simo

Beta member
Messages
2
Hello,
sorry to bother you but... this problem's really annoying me and it's really
strange!

The problem is: floppy disk drive doesn't work, i.e. it doesn't boot any bootable
floppy and it doesn't work under Windows XP. To be more precise, the led light lits up
when a floppy access is requested but the OS tells that the floppy isn't formatted
and asks for formatting, and when told 'yes' it says it can't format the floppy (okok
I checked for the write-protect slider)... I have the net impression that the floppy
controller gives the correct on/off signals to the drive but there's some problem
in data I/O.

I checked:
- the ribbon cable at both ends (on MOBO and drive), I even changed three different
cables and three different drives (and of course many different floppy disks);
- on the BIOS settings, I even reset BIOS default (by the way the MOBO is an Intel
D850GB) and nothing changed; I switched on and off the Plug&Play OS support but
nothing at all.

The amazing fact is: I cannot use also a USB external floppy drive which I own!!!

I'll explain better:
- this external USB floppy drive works on my notebook PC;
- when I connect the floppy to the MOBO USB connector I can boot DOS (i. e. the
Windows 98 restore bootdisk), but then I have many problem in reading the floppy,
I receive many Abort/Retry/Ignore read errors...
- when I let Windows XP start from hard disk then the OS sees the USB removable
floppy but it gives the exact problems of the floppy unit connected with the MOBO:
the same problems when reading floppies and when trying to format them...

I disconnected any hardware from the MOBO leaving only the processor, the RAM and
the hard disk, nothing else and... still the problem arises!

Does anyone have any idea on this mindcracking situation?!? It seems my
system hates floppy drives regardless of the interface; and that's absolutely
new for me!!!

Thanks for your help and understanding...! See you soon,
Simone
 
Might be a system resource problem. You check in device manager? Check to see if the floppy has a DMA channgel assign to it, IRQ, I/O addresses and memory address.
 
Re: Law

Ok,
I'll verify but... how could it work in Windows (i.e. Device Manager)
if it doesn't work at startup? (i.e. BIOS, boot time, etc.).

I know that floppies have the IRQ 6 reserved and in fact
no device uses that IRQ, and, more, what to do with the USB
external floppy drive? Why this strange (same) behaviour with
a completely different interface (and then, I suppose, different
I/O resources)?

Thank for your help and support,
Simone
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom