problem with laptop floppy drive

[Dave Gower]

I posted this question a few days ago, without response. However, I'm
repeating it here in case the problem was that people were away from their
computers on the weekend.

I have a Panasonic CF-25 laptop with Win 98 which I bought used
recently to do odd jobs and as a backup to my new P4 desktop. It has
removable CD and floppy drives which fit into the same slot. After I loaded
all my required software with the CD I inserted the floppy drive so I could
have a data backup. I took one of the floppies I was using on the desktop to
use for this purpose. Since I wasn't sure how old the floppy was I decided
to format it on the laptop just to be sure it was good and there were no
compatibility problems.

Now the strange part. The laptop can read the floppy off My Computer, and
can save and read from it. But when I try to format it keeps telling me
there is no floppy in the drive or the door is open, both of which are
definitely not true. Even though the floppy does work as backup, this
failure to find it for format makes me nervous. Do I have a software
problem, is there a physical problem with my drive, or am I missing
something obvious and simple?

 

[CineQ]

I posted this question a few days ago, without response. However, I'm
repeating it here in case the problem was that people were away from their
computers on the weekend.

hey, I just have subscribed to this group so had no chance to answer to
your post before

I have a Panasonic CF-25 laptop with Win 98 which I bought used
recently to do odd jobs and as a backup to my new P4 desktop. It has
removable CD and floppy drives which fit into the same slot. After I loaded
all my required software with the CD I inserted the floppy drive so I could
have a data backup. I took one of the floppies I was using on the desktop to
use for this purpose. Since I wasn't sure how old the floppy was I decided
to format it on the laptop just to be sure it was good and there were no
compatibility problems.

sound well

Now the strange part. The laptop can read the floppy off My Computer, and
can save and read from it. But when I try to format it keeps telling me
there is no floppy in the drive or the door is open, both of which are
definitely not true. Even though the floppy does work as backup, this
failure to find it for format makes me nervous. Do I have a software
problem, is there a physical problem with my drive, or am I missing
something obvious and simple?

two questions for you:
1. can you read/write, let's say move files to your workstation back and
forth using this floppy disk?
2. maybe it's the problem of your disk so try to format another one?

CineQ

 

[Minotaur]

I posted this question a few days ago, without response. However, I'm
repeating it here in case the problem was that people were away from their
computers on the weekend.

I have a Panasonic CF-25 laptop with Win 98 which I bought used
recently to do odd jobs and as a backup to my new P4 desktop. It has
removable CD and floppy drives which fit into the same slot. After I loaded
all my required software with the CD I inserted the floppy drive so I could
have a data backup. I took one of the floppies I was using on the desktop to
use for this purpose. Since I wasn't sure how old the floppy was I decided
to format it on the laptop just to be sure it was good and there were no
compatibility problems.

Now the strange part. The laptop can read the floppy off My Computer, and
can save and read from it. But when I try to format it keeps telling me
there is no floppy in the drive or the door is open, both of which are
definitely not true. Even though the floppy does work as backup, this
failure to find it for format makes me nervous. Do I have a software
problem, is there a physical problem with my drive, or am I missing
something obvious and simple?

One of the floppy drives is out of callibration. Create a floppy from
each computer and try and read them on another system, to find the
culprit. Sounds like the one with the door problem, floppy not inserted.
Drive heads probably can't read sector 0 so think, no floppy...

Minotaur

 

[Dave Gower]

One of the floppy drives is out of callibration.

Thanks. You learn something new every day. Since the laptop is well used and
the desktop is new and has never had a problem, I'd bet on the former as the
culprit. It needs a new battery so maybe I'll look for a new drive as well.