I have a relatively new (6 months old) Dell PC with a built-in 3.5"
diskette.

About 6 years ago someone created several 2HD diskettes on a PC.
These diskettes can be read on a NT server (about 10 years old) but
not my new Dell PC.

Is there a setting that I have to adjust on my Dell?

Thank you in advance.

mmm Only thing I could think of is that the NT server is NTFS and your Dell
might be Fat32. I haven't seen a Fat32 PC in a while, but it might be
possible in your case. More details about the system would help. What
version of windows are you running?

"allanc" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:0aa4f409-b293-4154-9d06-(E-Mail Removed)...
>I have a relatively new (6 months old) Dell PC with a built-in 3.5"
> diskette.
>
> About 6 years ago someone created several 2HD diskettes on a PC.
> These diskettes can be read on a NT server (about 10 years old) but
> not my new Dell PC.
>
> Is there a setting that I have to adjust on my Dell?
>
> Thank you in advance.

The new Dell Pc is XP sp3 and is formatted with NTFS.
That reminds me though....
A while back I was trying to write a large file (about 4 Gb) to a USB
stick and an error message was displayed that I was out of room.
I called the manufacturer and he had me change a setting somewhere
(which I did not note, of course).
Then, I could write the large file.
He said that my USB was set as FAT32 instead of NTFS.
I wonder if the issues are similiar.

On Jul 24, 3:39*pm, "Brent" <someb...@somewhere.com> wrote:
> mmm Only thing I could think of is that the NT server is NTFS and your Dell
> might be Fat32. I haven't seen a Fat32 PC in a while, but it might be
> possible in your case. More details about the system would help. What
> version of windows are you running?
>
> "allanc" <allan.for.g.gro...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:0aa4f409-b293-4154-9d06-(E-Mail Removed)...
>
> >I have a relatively new (6 months old) Dell PC with a built-in 3.5"
> > diskette.
>
> > About 6 years ago someone created several 2HD diskettes on a PC.
> > These diskettes can be read on a NT server (about 10 years old) but
> > not my new Dell PC.
>
> > Is there a setting that I have to adjust on my Dell?
>
> > Thank you in advance.

It could be. I was say to check the proporties for the Floppy disk. See what
file system the diskette is formatted for.
"allanc" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:4568576a-7ead-46b7-865e-(E-Mail Removed)...
The new Dell Pc is XP sp3 and is formatted with NTFS.
That reminds me though....
A while back I was trying to write a large file (about 4 Gb) to a USB
stick and an error message was displayed that I was out of room.
I called the manufacturer and he had me change a setting somewhere
(which I did not note, of course).
Then, I could write the large file.
He said that my USB was set as FAT32 instead of NTFS.
I wonder if the issues are similiar.

On Jul 24, 3:39 pm, "Brent" <someb...@somewhere.com> wrote:
> mmm Only thing I could think of is that the NT server is NTFS and your
> Dell
> might be Fat32. I haven't seen a Fat32 PC in a while, but it might be
> possible in your case. More details about the system would help. What
> version of windows are you running?
>
> "allanc" <allan.for.g.gro...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:0aa4f409-b293-4154-9d06-(E-Mail Removed)...
>
> >I have a relatively new (6 months old) Dell PC with a built-in 3.5"
> > diskette.
>
> > About 6 years ago someone created several 2HD diskettes on a PC.
> > These diskettes can be read on a NT server (about 10 years old) but
> > not my new Dell PC.
>
> > Is there a setting that I have to adjust on my Dell?
>
> > Thank you in advance.

I'm pretty sure this effect is undocumented, however...

Plenty of times a [floppy] disk, formatted on ANY other (Windows) system
(Win2K NT 3x 9x) *and*, even though they ALL format floppy disks as
Fat12, XP has problems on reading the disk.

Usually, returning that the disk file system is RAW or unformatted and
needs to be formatted.

Even though the disk is *still* readable in the other older machine.

Just another irritating "quirk" of the XP Operating System!

(P.S. - Use USB pen-drives instead - no such problems)

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London. :-)




"allanc" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:0aa4f409-b293-4154-9d06-(E-Mail Removed)...
>I have a relatively new (6 months old) Dell PC with a built-in 3.5"
> diskette.
>
> About 6 years ago someone created several 2HD diskettes on a PC.
> These diskettes can be read on a NT server (about 10 years old) but
> not my new Dell PC.
>
> Is there a setting that I have to adjust on my Dell?
>
> Thank you in advance.

On Jul 24, 3:56*pm, "Brent" <someb...@somewhere.com> wrote:
> It could be. I was say to check the proporties for the Floppy disk. See what
> file system the diskette is formatted for."allanc" <allan.for.g.gro...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:4568576a-7ead-46b7-865e-(E-Mail Removed)...
> The new Dell Pc is XP sp3 and is formatted with NTFS.
> That reminds me though....
> A while back I was trying to write a large file (about 4 Gb) to a USB
> stick and an error message was displayed that I was out of room.
> I called the manufacturer and he had me change a setting somewhere
> (which I did not note, of course).
> Then, I could write the large file.
> He said that my USB was set as FAT32 instead of NTFS.
> I wonder if the issues are similiar.
>
> On Jul 24, 3:39 pm, "Brent" <someb...@somewhere.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > mmm Only thing I could think of is that the NT server is NTFS and your
> > Dell
> > might be Fat32. I haven't seen a Fat32 PC in a while, but it might be
> > possible in your case. More details about the system would help. What
> > version of windows are you running?
>
> > "allanc" <allan.for.g.gro...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> >news:0aa4f409-b293-4154-9d06-(E-Mail Removed)...
>
> > >I have a relatively new (6 months old) Dell PC with a built-in 3.5"
> > > diskette.
>
> > > About 6 years ago someone created several 2HD diskettes on a PC.
> > > These diskettes can be read on a NT server (about 10 years old) but
> > > not my new Dell PC.
>
> > > Is there a setting that I have to adjust on my Dell?
>
> > > Thank you in advance.

A FAT32 file system on a HDD or a stick supposedly has a file size
limit of 2^32 - 1 = 4294967295 (1 byte less that 4GB).

A 3.5" floppy would of your description have a capacity of 1.44M.
They would most likely be FAT.

You can check the file system from My Computer, check the Properties
of the device.

XP can read either - it is the writing to it part where the limit
comes into play.

"Brent" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>mmm Only thing I could think of is that the NT server is NTFS and your Dell
>might be Fat32.

No, no. NT, Win2K, XP, Vista, all of the more recent Microsoft OSs can
use FAT12, FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS file systems. Any partition on those
OSs can use any of those file systems. There's no such thing as "NTFS
OS" or a "FAT32 OS".

As to what OPs problem is...I don't know. What exactly happens when
you try to use one of those floppies? Maybe there's a problem of some
kind with the floppy drive on the Dell.

--
Tim Slattery
MS MVP(Shell/User)
(E-Mail Removed)
http://members.cox.net/slatteryt

"allanc" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:0aa4f409-b293-4154-9d06-(E-Mail Removed)...
>I have a relatively new (6 months old) Dell PC with a built-in 3.5"
> diskette.
>
> About 6 years ago someone created several 2HD diskettes on a PC.
> These diskettes can be read on a NT server (about 10 years old) but
> not my new Dell PC.
>
> Is there a setting that I have to adjust on my Dell?
>
> Thank you in advance.

XP dropped at least one of the floppy modes, and consequently can't read
some floppies made on older systems.

If you can read them on another system, create a folder structure on the
other system, and copy the floppy contents there. Then transfer those via
network, USB or other removable media, and move away from floppies.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309623

HTH
-pk

allanc <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>The new Dell Pc is XP sp3 and is formatted with NTFS.
>That reminds me though....
>A while back I was trying to write a large file (about 4 Gb) to a USB
>stick and an error message was displayed that I was out of room.
>I called the manufacturer and he had me change a setting somewhere
>(which I did not note, of course).
>Then, I could write the large file.
>He said that my USB was set as FAT32 instead of NTFS.

Right. The FAT32 file system can't handle files larger than 4GB. (The
error message that's produced when you try to write an overlarge file
to a FAT file system is misleading, as you noted.) The limit for NTFS
is 2**44, larger than disks today.

>I wonder if the issues are similiar.

No.

--
Tim Slattery
MS MVP(Shell/User)
(E-Mail Removed)
http://members.cox.net/slatteryt

"Brent" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>It could be. I was say to check the proporties for the Floppy disk. See what
>file system the diskette is formatted for.

It will be FAT12, that's what floppies use.

--
Tim Slattery
MS MVP(Shell/User)
(E-Mail Removed)
http://members.cox.net/slatteryt