Odd floppy drive behavior

[Stephen Harris]

I downloaded a small file and saved it directly to the floppy drive
and later removed the floppy.

Later, I decided to download a larger file... Uusually there is a
dialogue about where you want to save the file.

No such dialogue occurred. The floppy drive was buzzed
for at least 30 seconds before I cancelled the download
with Ctrl-Alt-Delete. This happened at different sites and
with different files. The buzzing even went into high gear.
By buzzing, I mean the green light comes on and the drive
is checked which typically produces a distinctive noise.
It seemed like the process was stuck on detecting the floppy.

Finally, I reinserted a disk into the floppy which brought
up the download file dialogue. At first attempt, it would not
let me change the location of where the downloaded file
would be stored. The second time it allowed me normal
options of where to store the download file (disk inserted).

I have win xp pro with sp1 and all the updates.
Does anyone else experience duplicate behavior?

Regards,
Stephen

 

[Stephen Harris]

I downloaded a small file and saved it directly to the floppy drive
and later removed the floppy.

Later, I decided to download a larger file... Uusually there is a
dialogue about where you want to save the file.

No such dialogue occurred. The floppy drive was buzzed
for at least 30 seconds before I cancelled the download
with Ctrl-Alt-Delete. This happened at different sites and
with different files. The buzzing even went into high gear.
By buzzing, I mean the green light comes on and the drive
is checked which typically produces a distinctive noise.
It seemed like the process was stuck on detecting the floppy.

Finally, I reinserted a disk into the floppy which brought
up the download file dialogue. At first attempt, it would not
let me change the location of where the downloaded file
would be stored. The second time it allowed me normal
options of where to store the download file (disk inserted).

I have win xp pro with sp1 and all the updates.
Does anyone else experience duplicate behavior?

Regards,
Stephen

I just tested it again and the same problem repeated.
This time I fixed it less dramatically than ctrl-alt-delete;
I just inserted a floppy. Then it came up with an error
message somethink like "the disk in drive A is not formatted"
This is the same disk I just downloaded a file to.

So I responded no. Then I was presented the normal
screen for choosing download locations. Moving on
from choosing the default download location is broken
when the previous file download location is the A: drive.
The process gets stuck on the floppy drive. Again I
have installed all the updates and sp1 for win xp pro.
I ran ad-aware and spybot previous to this experiment
and I have real-time updated defintions for virus protection.
This is not that old-time win95 floppy random access problem.

Another major annoyance is that one has to actually download
a file to a different location in order to clear the floppy drive
default overkill buzz (doesn't stop without intervention AFAIK).
The problem does not extend to a different folder download
choice on the C: drive, just the A: drive.

Regards,
Stephen

 

[Stephen Harris]

I just tested it again and the same problem repeated.
This time I fixed it less dramatically than ctrl-alt-delete;
I just inserted a floppy. Then it came up with an error
message somethink like "the disk in drive A is not formatted"
This is the same disk I just downloaded a file to.

So I responded no. Then I was presented the normal
screen for choosing download locations. Moving on
from choosing the default download location is broken
when the previous file download location is the A: drive.
The process gets stuck on the floppy drive. Again I
have installed all the updates and sp1 for win xp pro.
I ran ad-aware and spybot previous to this experiment
and I have real-time updated defintions for virus protection.
This is not that old-time win95 floppy random access problem.

Another major annoyance is that one has to actually download
a file to a different location in order to clear the floppy drive
default overkill buzz (doesn't stop without intervention AFAIK).
The problem does not extend to a different folder download
choice on the C: drive, just the A: drive.

Regards,
Stephen

The problem is that there is no dialogue window which says
insert a disk in Drive A:
(this dialog window shows up on win98se and another win xp machine)
so that one can choose cancel, and then select another location
such as drive c: to download and save the file

 

[Rock]

I downloaded a small file and saved it directly to the floppy drive
and later removed the floppy.

Later, I decided to download a larger file... Uusually there is a
dialogue about where you want to save the file.

No such dialogue occurred. The floppy drive was buzzed
for at least 30 seconds before I cancelled the download
with Ctrl-Alt-Delete. This happened at different sites and
with different files. The buzzing even went into high gear.
By buzzing, I mean the green light comes on and the drive
is checked which typically produces a distinctive noise.
It seemed like the process was stuck on detecting the floppy.

Finally, I reinserted a disk into the floppy which brought
up the download file dialogue. At first attempt, it would not
let me change the location of where the downloaded file
would be stored. The second time it allowed me normal
options of where to store the download file (disk inserted).

I have win xp pro with sp1 and all the updates.
Does anyone else experience duplicate behavior?

Regards,
Stephen

Next time save it to the desktop and then copy to the floppy.

 

[Frank]

I downloaded a small file and saved it directly to the floppy drive
and later removed the floppy.

Later, I decided to download a larger file... Uusually there is a
dialogue about where you want to save the file.

No such dialogue occurred. The floppy drive was buzzed
for at least 30 seconds before I cancelled the download
with Ctrl-Alt-Delete. This happened at different sites and
with different files. The buzzing even went into high gear.
By buzzing, I mean the green light comes on and the drive
is checked which typically produces a distinctive noise.
It seemed like the process was stuck on detecting the floppy.

Finally, I reinserted a disk into the floppy which brought
up the download file dialogue. At first attempt, it would not
let me change the location of where the downloaded file
would be stored. The second time it allowed me normal
options of where to store the download file (disk inserted).

I have win xp pro with sp1 and all the updates.
Does anyone else experience duplicate behavior?

Regards,
Stephen

Floppy drives are legacy hardware. They must be unmounted
before one removes the diskette.