The A: drive/XP mystery

[Guest]

The problem: a: drive floppy has become non-functioning. The suspect: Win
XP. Clues: While trying to access the a: drive the message "Please insert
disk into drive a:" is continually displayed whether a disk is in or not;
replaced drive and cable; can-not access a: from command line (inside Win)
and get a "Disk no longer valid" msg; have physically removed drive and
deleated driver and floppy disk controller from hardware manager, rebooted,
system off and floppy drive reinstalled (same resulte); upon booting with
non-sys disk shows the correct error msg "non system disk..."; using a system
disk the a:, drive can! be accessed, written to and read from; drive is fully
functional in Win safe mode; have formatted floppy in safe mode, same problem
in full mode; have read all other posts in reguard to floppy problems and
instigated all that was appropriate, no luck. Conclusion: Drive, ribbon
cable, and motherboard are OK. Win XP driver is deffective or corrupt orjust
hates my a: drive. Can the driver/floppy disk controller be replaced and
where can I get a new one? (have already searched the net). I'd hate to do a
complete reinstall just for the floppy driver. Does Microsoft hold stock in
USB flash drives? (Just joking). What do you think, Dr. Watson?

 

[Trent©]

The problem: a: drive floppy has become non-functioning. The suspect: Win
XP. Clues: While trying to access the a: drive the message "Please insert
disk into drive a:" is continually displayed whether a disk is in or not;
replaced drive and cable; can-not access a: from command line (inside Win)
and get a "Disk no longer valid" msg; have physically removed drive and
deleated driver and floppy disk controller from hardware manager, rebooted,
system off and floppy drive reinstalled (same resulte); upon booting with
non-sys disk shows the correct error msg "non system disk..."; using a system
disk the a:, drive can! be accessed, written to and read from; drive is fully
functional in Win safe mode; have formatted floppy in safe mode, same problem
in full mode; have read all other posts in reguard to floppy problems and
instigated all that was appropriate, no luck. Conclusion: Drive, ribbon
cable, and motherboard are OK. Win XP driver is deffective or corrupt orjust
hates my a: drive. Can the driver/floppy disk controller be replaced and
where can I get a new one? (have already searched the net). I'd hate to do a
complete reinstall just for the floppy driver. Does Microsoft hold stock in
USB flash drives? (Just joking). What do you think, Dr. Watson?

Which SP? This was a common problem before...and even after...SP1.

And reinstalling won't help...if its an inate problem with the OS.

If you can boot into a 98 system disk, the problem is simply with XP.
I haven't heard of anybody having this problem after sp2, however.


Have a nice one...

Trent

Budweiser: Helping ugly people have sex since 1876!

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the response. It is SP2, but before the upgrade I would
occasionally get the often refered to "disk is not formatted do you want to
format" error msg after a few weeks of intermitent use. This was usually
solved by using a new diskett. I thought I had a bad batch of disks untill
my son started having the same problems on his comp and I started reading the
boards. I sure liked Win 98SE the way it just plugged along on these mundane
processes.

 

[Yves Leclerc]

There was an update that removed correct access to floppies and CD-Rom
drives. I found this out and removed the update. Then, it was included in
the Roll-UP update. I also know that MS was aware of this and was going to
provide an update for that update in SP2. I have yet to have this problem
re-occur.

 

[Quaoar]

The problem: a: drive floppy has become non-functioning. The
suspect: Win XP. Clues: While trying to access the a: drive the
message "Please insert disk into drive a:" is continually displayed
whether a disk is in or not; replaced drive and cable; can-not access
a: from command line (inside Win) and get a "Disk no longer valid"
msg; have physically removed drive and deleated driver and floppy
disk controller from hardware manager, rebooted, system off and
floppy drive reinstalled (same resulte); upon booting with non-sys
disk shows the correct error msg "non system disk..."; using a system
disk the a:, drive can! be accessed, written to and read from; drive
is fully functional in Win safe mode; have formatted floppy in safe
mode, same problem in full mode; have read all other posts in reguard
to floppy problems and instigated all that was appropriate, no luck.
Conclusion: Drive, ribbon cable, and motherboard are OK. Win XP
driver is deffective or corrupt orjust hates my a: drive. Can the
driver/floppy disk controller be replaced and where can I get a new
one? (have already searched the net). I'd hate to do a complete
reinstall just for the floppy driver. Does Microsoft hold stock in
USB flash drives? (Just joking). What do you think, Dr. Watson?

Buy a new drive. It often happens that Win98 floppy drives are simply
not going to work in XP. Besides that, the lifetime of floppy drives
is, well, not measured in decades, and that drive is probably 6,7,8
years old.

Q

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the input. I failed to mention that I tried using 3 other floppy
drives (I build computers as a hobby) with the same result. Also, the drives
work just fine in "safe mode" but not in normal mode. This leads me to
believe that the conflict in a Win XP driver. I had also tried removing the
drive physically, going into the BIOS and removing any reference to floppy
drives then did a new install of hardware.

"> Buy a new drive. It often happens that Win98 floppy drives are simply

 

[Guest]

New things are happening now. System sees my CD and DVD drives in "My
Computer" but now I can't access them. Put in a disk and won't autorun (yes,
it's on) and when I try to access the disks through My Computer, Explorer or
Command line it says to insert disk. Only way for it to work is to insert
disk and restart comp. Works fine untill you change disks then same old same
old.

 

[Guest]

I'm having the exact same problem. The only time I can change a CD is to
reboot with the cd in the drive. Although it does work if you boot safe
mode. In fact this is the only way I can get the floppy drive to work as it
will try to boot from the floppy. This was happening with XP sp1 and is
continuing with sp2. Don't know when it started but it was around the time I
added Norton Internet Security so I don't know if this might be the problem.

 

[Brent Beach]

New things are happening now. System sees my CD and DVD drives in
"My Computer" but now I can't access them. Put in a disk and won't
autorun (yes, it's on) and when I try to access the disks through My
Computer, Explorer or Command line it says to insert disk. Only way
for it to work is to insert disk and restart comp. Works fine untill
you change disks then same old same old.

Me too - I have asked about a CD drive that won't auto run before you
posted today, then noticed your problem. Think I will tag along on this
thread.

My version of XP is fresh - a 2 week old Dell machine - and the CD drive
no longer recognizes the disk. The light blinks 10 or 15 times when the
drive is closed, but nothing comes up. The disk autoruns on another machine.

My question is under the subject: "CD drive no longer ...".

Brent

 

[Guest]

Welcom to the world of wonder! Thanks for your posts guys. I had Norton
I.S. on the machine too but I removed it 8 mo. ago. I have checked other
boards, spec. ones where people have a similar problem with their CD and DVD
drives ceasing to work but theirs seem to be caused by using a USB flash
memory stick *and* installing a support program. My son has used his SanDisk
Cruzer 256 memory on the machine but there was no! support software
installed. I must point out that the motherboard is an older one that only
supports USB 1.1 and I have the latest BIOS from the manufacture. I only
mention this for information only. Brent, that is exactly what I have
happening also, a few lights trying to read then nothing. When you say fresh,
do you mean the machine is 2 weeks old or is the install 2 weeks old. If the
latter, how old is the machine and do you know what the processor and chipset
are? Once again, I must conclued there is a problem in XP because I can
access all devices in safe mode! Microsoft, are you monitoring this thread?

 

[Sunny]

Me too - I have asked about a CD drive that won't auto run before you
posted today, then noticed your problem. Think I will tag along on this
thread.

My version of XP is fresh - a 2 week old Dell machine - and the CD drive
no longer recognizes the disk. The light blinks 10 or 15 times when the
drive is closed, but nothing comes up. The disk autoruns on another
machine.

My question is under the subject: "CD drive no longer ...".

Brent

I had a long battle with this reboot-to-access-CD nonsense when I was
running NT4, finally solved it by installing a hacked version of
cdfs.sys I found on the net.

I recently upgraded all my systems to XP Pro SP2, and am now seeing the
same problems again - but not on all systems, here it appears to affect
systems which have, or have had, Roxio software installed. Ring any bells?

I'm suspecting that installing an ASPI layer, which XP doesn't use but
is handy because it allows digital audio playback on non-MMC compliant
drives (which are otherwise unsupported), is somehow related to the issue.

Sunny

 

[EasyFeelings]

ok, first off i'm sorry i don't have the answer to everyones problem.
but, i run WinXP with SP2 and i have a cd burner, dvd burner and a dvd/cd
rom , i also use Roxio, nero and alcohol.
i would believe (or hope) that there is a common thread between all of you,
but i don't believe it's Roxio or SP2.

 

[Brent Beach]

Dave

mention this for information only. Brent, that is exactly what I
have happening also, a few lights trying to read then nothing. When
you say fresh, do you mean the machine is 2 weeks old or is the
install 2 weeks old.

The PC is 2 weeks old. It was built by Dell in Jan 05.

Brent

 

[Guest]

I have solved the problem on my PC. It was software from Nero called InCD.
I uninstalled the software using a tool to remove the software that I found

 

[Cyberbear]

Dave Blanchard wrote:
<sniiped>

I have checked other

boards, spec. ones where people have a similar problem with their CD and DVD
drives ceasing to work but theirs seem to be caused by using a USB flash
memory stick *and* installing a support program.

Agreed that this can cause the problem. I have seen at least two
PCs that had this problem. The owners had installed USB
'QuickieDrives', and had installed the support sogftware from the
CD that came with the drives. After uninstalling that software
their CD drives began working properly again.

 

[Guest]

Bravo! It works! I had an old version (2.0 I think) of InCD on my machine.
Never thought much about it except once I tried to remove it but a msg. said
it was running and I couldn't delete it. Once I used the "clean removel
tool" from nero and uninstalled it, all!! my drives started working,
including the A:! Talk about team work. Thanks to all of you for your input
and thought. Bob, what led you to uninstalling InCD?

 

[Guest]

My floppy drive also disappeared after installing XP Home.
I have read all the posts and replaced:
the floppy unit with a new one
the 40-pin cable
the motherboard,and
removed al traces of INcd.
Sadly none of these measures has had any effect.
So it must be the OS that is at fault.
The ulltimate solution that does work is to purchase a removeable/external
floppy drive like my Mitsumi D353FUE attach it to a USB socket and all the
probs are solved!

 

[Guest]

might check out microsoft article
support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;140060. i think it is
related. this fixed my floppy problem and i wasn't having much cd problems.
don't use it. problem comes when device or software using usb port. it may
be the same with the cds.

lost

 

[Guest]

TrendMicro is the problem with CD drives no longer working all of a sudden on
a corporate network. Please see the following Solution ID: 1033659 from
Trendmicro.com

http://esupport.trendmicro.com/support/viewxml.do?ContentID=EN-1033659&id=EN-1033659

Check with your anti-virus software company for similar fixes. Note: their
solution did not show up on any google searches. A co-worker from a far sent
me this.

 

[Guest]

I AM RUNNING XP HOME&SP2,had trouble starting floppy disk drive for some
time,reading through the threads ,memory card reader was mentioned, so I
removed the driver's for my usb 2 combo reader, and the floppy came back to
life,working perfect now ,after changing the drive ribbons etc,was a whole
waste of time,put my original floppy & ribbon back, all's well now, thank for
the info.