Floppy Drive stopped working -- Help!

[Guest]

My 3.5" floppy drive stopped working. I hope somebody can help me get it
going again.

Windows Explorer does not see the drive. However, when rebooting, if I leave
a non-system floppy in the drive, the green light goes on briefly then the
message "Non-system disk or disk error. Replace and press any key..." I
checked inside the box and all cables seem to be plugged in OK.

Also the Device Manager sees "Standard Floppy Disk Controller" and "Floppy
Disk Drive", however there is a yellow ball with and exclamation point on the
latter.

When I try updating the driver I get: "Windows successfully loaded the
device driver for this hardware but cannot find the hardware device. [Code
41]" When I try "Troubleshoot" I get in a dead end.

One more thing: the last time(?) I remember using the drive, I was saving a
small Excel file to a floppy (from the Excel application -- not Win
Explorer). Then I put in a different floppy and tried to save the same file
to the 2nd floppy. If I remember right, the save hung and I had to
Ctrl+Alt+Del to reboot. Did this fry the drive?

Would appreciate any help. -- Wanna B Ageek

4-year old Dell 8250, Pentium 4 - 2.53 GHz, 1.5 GB RAM, WinXP Home SP2, BIOS
version A02.

 

[Ghostrider]

My 3.5" floppy drive stopped working. I hope somebody can help me get it
going again.

Windows Explorer does not see the drive. However, when rebooting, if I leave
a non-system floppy in the drive, the green light goes on briefly then the
message "Non-system disk or disk error. Replace and press any key..." I
checked inside the box and all cables seem to be plugged in OK.

Also the Device Manager sees "Standard Floppy Disk Controller" and "Floppy
Disk Drive", however there is a yellow ball with and exclamation point on the
latter.

When I try updating the driver I get: "Windows successfully loaded the
device driver for this hardware but cannot find the hardware device. [Code
41]" When I try "Troubleshoot" I get in a dead end.

One more thing: the last time(?) I remember using the drive, I was saving a
small Excel file to a floppy (from the Excel application -- not Win
Explorer). Then I put in a different floppy and tried to save the same file
to the 2nd floppy. If I remember right, the save hung and I had to
Ctrl+Alt+Del to reboot. Did this fry the drive?

Would appreciate any help. -- Wanna B Ageek

4-year old Dell 8250, Pentium 4 - 2.53 GHz, 1.5 GB RAM, WinXP Home SP2, BIOS
version A02.

The quality of floppy disk drives are not what they used to be. But
they are also relatively inexpensive these days. Replace it. And for
the next time, do not remove any floppy diskette from the drive until
the drive light has turned off.

 

[Guest]

Thx, Ghostrider . . .

Buying a new floppy drive was going to be my next step, but I just HAD to
check with more knowledgable people to see if there was another "something" I
could do to make the old one work.

I see Dell sells one for about $33, but my local Computer Deli store has one
for $14(!). You were right . . . not that expensive.

Thx for the advice and your expertise. -- Wanna B Ageek

 

[Og]

Be aware that 'many' Dell computers have custom cases that _will not_
accept a standard floppy drive in the floppy drive bay.
If you have an open 5 1/4 bay (where a CD or DVD drive fits), you can fit
'drive rails' to the floppy drive to expand its width to fit that size.
Else you are stuck with purchasing a Dell customized drive.
Steve

 

[Guest]

Thank you, Oq . . .

A good thing to know. I appreciate your 'heads up' on this -- BEFORE I buy
the replacement drive! B)

I will check it out. Thx! -- Wanna B Ageek