Reading Floppies on XP

[Genealogy Addict]

Since installing XP on our computer, I am unable to open
any floppies. A message window comes up stating that the
floppy needs to be formated and all info on the disk will
be lost! HELP!!!!! How can I read info saved to a floppy
on a Windows 98 FAT 32 system with the NFTS of XP?

 

[Bob Harris]

Since installing XP on our computer, I am unable to open
any floppies. A message window comes up stating that the
floppy needs to be formated and all info on the disk will
be lost! HELP!!!!! How can I read info saved to a floppy
on a Windows 98 FAT 32 system with the NFTS of XP?

 

[Bob Harris]

1.44 Meg floppies are formattd with FAT12, due to thier small size. All
Microsoft operating systems since DOS can read them, including XP. The
format of the hard drive is not relavent to reading a floppy. And, in case
you were wondering, yes you can freekly copy to/frojm FAT32 and NTFS
partitions with XP.

As for your problem, be methodical and try to determine whether it is the
floppy drive, the floppy, or XP. The easiest way to test the floppy drive
is to make a new floppy with XP. Specifically make a bootable floppy. That
is an option on the format window. Once it is made, leave it in the floppy
drive and reboot. Assuming that your PC is set with the first boot device
as the floppy (very common), you will end up in DOS, Windows ME DOS to be
precise. (There is no XP DOS, so ME is best you can do for a bootable
floppy.)

If you boot into XP, then reboot and go into the BIOS setup and make the
floppy the first boot device. Reboot.

If ths works, you will know several things: (1) the floppy drive is OK, (2)
this particular floppy is OK. Now insert a floppy that XP can not read.
Type DIR at the DOS command line. Does DOS read the floppy? If yes, the
floppy is OK. If not, the floppy is either bad, OR its tracks are on one
end of the "normal" specification and the drive reader head is on the other,
making the combination unusable.

If XP can NOT make a bootable floppy, or can not see a blank floppy, then I
suspect a bad drive. For $20 or so, yu could get a new floppy drive and try
it.

Try looking in the device manager (from Mycomputer, system propeties, device
manager). Look at both flopy disk controller and floppy disk drive. Check
properties of each. Any errors, warnings, yellow asterisks? If yes,
software-uninstall the device. Then, try computer managment, device
manager, Action, scan for hardware changes. This can re-initialize a device
and load proper drivers. If no errors, etc, try scanning for new hardware
anyway.

While it is theoretically possible that software drivers are missing to run
the floppy, that is a low probabilty, since XP and other OSs come with such
drivers. Still, why not check this anyway: Look in
C:\windows\system32\drivers for file called fdc.sys and flpydisk.sys.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

In

Since installing XP on our computer, I am unable to open
any floppies. A message window comes up stating that the
floppy needs to be formated and all info on the disk will
be lost! HELP!!!!! How can I read info saved to a floppy
on a Windows 98 FAT 32 system with the NFTS of XP?

There is no incompatibility between a floppy created on one
Windows operating system and another. They all use FAT12 and
should work in exactly the same way. The FAT32 and NTFS hard
drives you mention are irrelevant.

There may be an incompatibility in the way the two diskette
*drives* are aligned, preventing reading of a diskette created on
the other drive.

Also read http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=140060

 

[David C.]

In


There is no incompatibility between a floppy created on one
Windows operating system and another. They all use FAT12 and
should work in exactly the same way. The FAT32 and NTFS hard
drives you mention are irrelevant.

There may be an incompatibility in the way the two diskette
*drives* are aligned, preventing reading of a diskette created on
the other drive.

Also read http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=140060

Here's another XP floppy issue that people should be aware of,
even though it doesn't directly apply to the problem being
discussed:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q309623

D.C.