XP FDD Problems Ever Fixed?

[Chris]

Does anybody know if XP's problems reading/writing 3.5 inch FDDs were
ever fixed (or if anybody ever found/developed a reliable work
around)? This is one where XP reports that the disk isn't formated
or that the drive is empty, etc.

It's been around since at least 2002 and has been variously blamed on
bad media, Media Descriptor Byte, dirty/worn out/misaligned drives,
etc. My theory is that at least one of the 1000's of XP update
packages was responsible since I have floppies that were written on my
current XP machine that it will no longer read (but are still readable
on NT, 98, etc).

I've tried pretty much every voodoo solution I've come across - new
cables, different physical FDD, FDD driver from Embedded Windows,
turning off anti-virus, etc. Nothing seems to help - I even bought a
USB floppy, but that exhibits the same symptoms (cameras, printers and
USB Harddrives work fine, though).

It isn't the end of the world, since my various rescue floppies (BIOS
flash, Ghost, Partition Magic, etc) will still boot the machine into a
DOS (or DOS like) state and allow those utililities to function. It
is a bit irritating to have to use an entire CD to back up a 100k file
though. I fire up an old NT machine on the network if I absolutely
have to create a floppy.

If anybody has had better luck Googling than I have, I'd appreciate
hearing about it.

Thanks,
Chris

 

[Shenan Stanley]

Does anybody know if XP's problems reading/writing 3.5 inch FDDs
were ever fixed (or if anybody ever found/developed a reliable work
around)? This is one where XP reports that the disk isn't formated
or that the drive is empty, etc.

It's been around since at least 2002 and has been variously blamed
on bad media, Media Descriptor Byte, dirty/worn out/misaligned
drives, etc. My theory is that at least one of the 1000's of XP
update packages was responsible since I have floppies that were
written on my current XP machine that it will no longer read (but
are still readable on NT, 98, etc).

I've tried pretty much every voodoo solution I've come across - new
cables, different physical FDD, FDD driver from Embedded Windows,
turning off anti-virus, etc. Nothing seems to help - I even bought
a USB floppy, but that exhibits the same symptoms (cameras,
printers and USB Harddrives work fine, though).

It isn't the end of the world, since my various rescue floppies
(BIOS flash, Ghost, Partition Magic, etc) will still boot the
machine into a DOS (or DOS like) state and allow those utililities
to function. It is a bit irritating to have to use an entire CD to
back up a 100k file though. I fire up an old NT machine on the
network if I absolutely have to create a floppy.

If anybody has had better luck Googling than I have, I'd appreciate
hearing about it.

Drop the floppy.
Start using bootable CD/DVDs...
Images even...
Start using thumb drives - a 2GB one will cost you less than a floppy drive
and a pack of 1.44MB floppy diskettes.

I still make bootable FDDs myself - but I have been weening myself since
Windows XP came out.
It was a dying thing then - it's still dying - kind twitching - not sure it
is actually still alive. heh

When you say the FDs are still readable in Windows 98/NT - are you using the
same hardware?
(Dual boot? VMWare?)

Have you tried taking the drive out of the one that reads and using it in
the XP machine - cable and all?

I have had the same frustration, once or twice. Heck - I have had diskettes
only macintosh computers could read - and they were not macintosh
diskettes/formatted with macitosh information even. Diskettes are
unreliable as a media type. I have had floppy diskettes that worked in a
machine one week not work the next. Diskettes that have done nothing but
sit in a drawer - away from any electromagnetic influence, etc - not work
two months later having never been touched - in the same machine.

Sometimes you have to accept change. I keep a USB floppy drive around -
just in case. I still make the occasional one to boot some old machine I
need to wipe to send off to a surplus pile...

 

[Shenan Stanley]

Does anybody know if XP's problems reading/writing 3.5 inch FDDs
were ever fixed (or if anybody ever found/developed a reliable work
around)? This is one where XP reports that the disk isn't formated
or that the drive is empty, etc.

It's been around since at least 2002 and has been variously blamed
on bad media, Media Descriptor Byte, dirty/worn out/misaligned
drives, etc. My theory is that at least one of the 1000's of XP
update packages was responsible since I have floppies that were
written on my current XP machine that it will no longer read (but
are still readable on NT, 98, etc).

I've tried pretty much every voodoo solution I've come across - new
cables, different physical FDD, FDD driver from Embedded Windows,
turning off anti-virus, etc. Nothing seems to help - I even bought
a USB floppy, but that exhibits the same symptoms (cameras,
printers and USB Harddrives work fine, though).

It isn't the end of the world, since my various rescue floppies
(BIOS flash, Ghost, Partition Magic, etc) will still boot the
machine into a DOS (or DOS like) state and allow those utililities
to function. It is a bit irritating to have to use an entire CD to
back up a 100k file though. I fire up an old NT machine on the
network if I absolutely have to create a floppy.

If anybody has had better luck Googling than I have, I'd appreciate
hearing about it.

Drop the floppy.
Start using bootable CD/DVDs...
Images even...
Start using thumb drives - a 2GB one will cost you less than a
floppy drive and a pack of 1.44MB floppy diskettes.

I still make bootable FDDs myself - but I have been weening myself
since Windows XP came out.
It was a dying thing then - it's still dying - kind twitching - not
sure it is actually still alive. heh

When you say the FDs are still readable in Windows 98/NT - are you
using the same hardware?
(Dual boot? VMWare?)

Have you tried taking the drive out of the one that reads and using
it in the XP machine - cable and all?

I have had the same frustration, once or twice. Heck - I have had
diskettes only macintosh computers could read - and they were not
macintosh diskettes/formatted with macitosh information even. Diskettes
are unreliable as a media type. I have had floppy
diskettes that worked in a machine one week not work the next. Diskettes
that have done nothing but sit in a drawer - away from
any electromagnetic influence, etc - not work two months later
having never been touched - in the same machine.
Sometimes you have to accept change. I keep a USB floppy drive
around - just in case. I still make the occasional one to boot
some old machine I need to wipe to send off to a surplus pile...

Additional information on why the floppy diskette is/has been dying:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage...t&productCategoryId=cat01167&id=1051384115451

- $7.99 for a 25 pack of 3.5" 1.44MB floppy diskettes...
- 36 MB storage...
- 22.2 cents per megabyte...
- Write to them over and over...
- Sensitive to all sorts of environmental changes...


http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage...t&productCategoryId=cat01164&id=1095940787469

- $15.99 for a 25 pack of 700MB CD-RWs...
- 17500 MB storage...
- 0.0914 cents (that's fractions of a cent) per megabyte...
- Write to them over and over...
- Still sensitive to all sorts of environmental changes - but less so than
floppy diskettes...

So - if it bothers you writing 100k to a CD - so be it. It bothers me more
that I spent $0.22 to write that 100k to a diskette than it would the
9/100ths of a penny to do so on the CD-RW. heh

Sure - you could say that you spent less per individual 'disk'... (1/2
actually in this example)
$0.32/diskette vs. $0.64/cd-rw...

But given I rarely make a CD-RW that does one thing (it usually is a
multi-boot CD, many functions in a menu format) - I just don't see the death
of the diskette as a viable media as that bad of a thing... I'd rather
carry around a single CD/DVD that uses images of the many floppy boot
diskettes (and actually boots from them) I have made in my lifetime along
with the better CD/DVD bootable tools/options as well... knowing it will
have a better chance of working and that very FEW machines do not have a CD
drive these days - than a whole slew of floppy diskettes for the same
reason - knowing that very few machines have floppy diskette drives these
days. heh

And as for storing files (like documents, etc) - I would much rather have a
USB thumb drive with much more space than that whole box of floppies where i
could not only keep a copy of the documents, etc - but I could save many
different versions and many different copies as well.

So - fix, no.
If there was such a thing - if it was some conspiracy to kill the floppy
diskette drive - it worked.

 

[Chris]

I don't know if I buy into 3.5" floppy technology being completely
unreliable. I still have DOS floppies that I can read on my NT or 98
machines. They must be 10-15 years old (yeah, I know, why do I keep
them? Maybe to give to a museum someday?). I could be easily talked
into believing that the disks you buy today at the quicky-mart have
thinner magnetic coatings and weaker springs and poorer alignment on
the bulk formatting machines, and, ....

As for using the same hardware, my XP box just runs XP (the NT box
runs NT, 98 and Red Hat and there's another 98 machine in the house).
I have transplanted a working FDD and cable from another box to the XP
box, even got it to read a couple of diskettes, then it went back to
the same symptoms. When the donor FDD and cable went back to their
original box, they miraculously worked again.

I have a working bootable CD, so I can probably get the machine
working well enough to fix it if (when) it croaks, I just haven't
played with making bootable CDs much so my confidence level isn't as
high as with the rescue floppies that I've used in the past.

One thing still bugs me, though, and that's why my USB FDD doesn't
work on the XP machine. Other USB devices work fine on the XP, it
recognizes the USB FDD as B:, then treats it in exactly the same
shabby way it treats A:


Chris

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I don't know if I buy into 3.5" floppy technology being completely
unreliable. I still have DOS floppies that I can read on my NT or 98
machines. They must be 10-15 years old (yeah, I know, why do I keep
them? Maybe to give to a museum someday?).

"Unreliable" doesn't mean mean that no floppy disk is readable 10-15 years
after being written. It means that you can not *rely* on its being
readable--that a significant number of such floppies will not be readable.

If I had any floppies containing data that old, and that data was important
to me, I would copy it to another medium asap (in fact, I would have done it
long ago).