W2k Pro and Floppy Drive Problem

[Charles E Finkenbiner]

Hi All,

I have a computer with an Intel SE440BX motherboard which only supports
1 floppy drive. Since I have installed all the BIOS updates I can
disable the motherboard floppy and install an add-in card in order to
get support for 2 floppy drives.

So, I installed an ISA (16-bit) multi I/O card and used the floppy, LPT
and serial ports. When booting from the floppy both floppy drives work
fine. The problem happens once W2k Pro boots from the hard drive. W2k
Pro sees the floppies and installed the drivers with no problems.

The problem is that both floppy drives do not work under W2k Pro. When
I insert a disk, double click on the A: drive icon W2k Pro will think
about opening it for about 20-30 seconds then it prompts me with a
dialog to insert a disk in the drive. The only option on this dialog is
'Cancel'. There is a disk in the drive so I do not understand why W2k
Pro reports that there is no disk in the drive.

Has anyone ever heard/had this problem? How can I fix it? Will I have
to get a PCI floppy controller? Or what?


Thanks for any help,

Charles

 

[DL]

As a matter of interest why do you need two floppy drives?

 

[Charles E Finkenbiner]

I need both 3 1/2 and 5 1/4 flopppies. I still have clients that use my
DOS application and some of them only have the 5 1/4 drive. So, when I
send out updates I need to provide both floppy formats.

I do not have any problems when I multi-boot into MS-DOS 6.22 and that
is where I use both floppies. Both floppies work when I multi-boot into
Win98 SE, however; when I multi-boot into W2k Pro I have no floppy and I
need at least the 3 1/2 floppy.

Besides, why does it matter why I want 2 floppy drives?


Thanks for any help,

Charles

 

[DL]

Doesnt matter, just interest.
Are you getting any conflicts in hardware devices?
I assume if just a single floppy installed win2k is fine?

 

[Charles E Finkenbiner]

Hi,

No, 1 single floppy does not work under W2k either. If I remove the
add-in card and enable the motherboard floppy controller then W2k Pro
will work with the single drive.

Since I need 2 floppies in MS-DOS I do not want to have to leave my
computer open and remove/install the add-in card for 2 floppy support.
I am trying to figure out why W2k will not work with the add-in card.

No, there are no device conflicts shown in Device Manager. Device
Manager shows 2 floppies installed and W2k sees the floppies. It just
doesn't know that a floppy is in the drive.


Thanks,

Charles

 

[DL]

Um, I must confess I use my floppy rarely but when I do I often get an error
msg 'IO err' this is cured by trying diff. floppys - I doubt thats yr prob
though.
If you remove the add-in card and it works off the mb controller doesnt that
tend to suggest some sort of conflict with the card and win2k?

 

[Gary Smith]

No, there are no device conflicts shown in Device Manager. Device
Manager shows 2 floppies installed and W2k sees the floppies. It just
doesn't know that a floppy is in the drive.

I suspect that the supplied driver is defective. Check with the
manufacturer to see whther there's a newer vaersion available, and make
sure that it's specifically for Win2K.

 

[Charles E Finkenbiner]

Yes, it does suggest 'some sort of conflict with the card and win2k' and
that's what I'm trying to figure out. I turned to this newsgroup
because I have tried everything I know of.


Thanks,

Charles

 

[Charles E Finkenbiner]

There are no supplied drivers. The add-in card is an old multi-i/o card
(16 bit ISA). W2k is using it's standard drivers, just like MS-DOS and
Win98 SE. The only OS that I'm having problems with is W2k.

That's why I was wondering if buying a newer multi-i/o card (PCI this
time) would work correctly. Since these cards are quite a bit more
expensive I was trying to get feedback on my problem first.


Thanks,

Charles

 

[DL]

I think yr only option is to buy a new card, I cannot think of anything in
win2k that would prevent the usage of the multiple drives.

 

[Gary Smith]

There are no supplied drivers. The add-in card is an old multi-i/o card
(16 bit ISA). W2k is using it's standard drivers, just like MS-DOS and
Win98 SE. The only OS that I'm having problems with is W2k.

That's why I was wondering if buying a newer multi-i/o card (PCI this
time) would work correctly. Since these cards are quite a bit more
expensive I was trying to get feedback on my problem first.

It's quite possible that W2K just doesn't understand the old card. When I
bought my current machine, I had similar card installed in order to get a
second parallel port. The card came with a driver that had to be
installed before the port was recognized. If the manufacturer of the card
you have is still in business and has a web site, they may have a W2K
driver available for the card. On the other hand, if the card is out of
production, there may be no driver and no hope of getting one. We've got
an old CD-Rom drive around here that won't even work with Windows 98, and
apparently no 32-bit driver exists for it.