bad floppy on new Dell?

My Dell dimension 2350 is barely one year out of the box, which means I think it's just past warrantee; plus dealing with their tech support isn't really worth it.

It may be that until yesterday I never actually tried using the floppy drive. Well when I did it appears to not work. It won't read a floppy confirmed good on another computer, tells me there's nothing on it and offers to format. Then it fails to format.

I can't see a light but do hear a series of clicking and it takes some time before telling me that it can't format the floppy disk.

Following the troubleshooter the only thing left to do is swap the unit into another box; I'm thinking not only would it be easier to just replace the darned thing but not convinced I even need it since my workstation has no problem booting from the CD rom should I need to.

Am I missing something here? I find it unusual that a floppy would go this fast... or maybe never worked to begin with?

 

While it's entirely possible to have a bad floppy, before doing anything too drastic you might want to try reseating the ribbon cable and the power connector to make sure you're getting a good connection on both.

 

Something so simple but:

Did you check that the little window on the right side of the floppy disk is closed ?

Best

 

Some months ago, I too experienced the very same problem as you describe Marty.
My machine was/is not an OEM machine.
I build all the machines here in my home and have built many others for friends.

I have seen this "problem" debated and kicked around many times in the many forums I visit.

I have concluded that it is a problem with the Windows XP OS and how it addresses the floppy drive.

Another factor I have discovered is the quality of the floppy disc itself has a lot to do with this problem.
I use nothing but Sony 1.44 floppies exclusively and have never had the problem again for over a year.

Daddad

 

Daddad,

You're saying that reseating the connections probably won't do the trick, and that it's likely to work on another box if I swap it out?

Is this common in your experience to both XP home and pro? Not an issue though on any other os?

I did remove both the device and driver, no luck there.

My lan has 5 different computers on it and it's getting so each one has its own personality, kind of funny. For instance my xp workstation is afaik the only one in my office that will boot from the cd, but then it's also the only one w/o a working floppy drive.

My thought is still that I don't really need a floppy on that box, and since installing win2k is sounding like what is really needed I'm going to leave things as they are.

 

Chances are this is a faulty/damaged drive. The only way to be sure is to swap it for one that you know works.

I have two XP boxes, one with home and one with pro. Home has a 3.5 and a 5.25 drive. Pro has a 3.5/5.25 combo drive. XP recognizes and allows me to run both without issue.

ICE

 

No Marty, I am not saying that at all.
You were given good advice by KevenSaul.
By all means, re-seat the two cables connecting your A: drive.

My only thrust here was to present some observations I have made concerning this problem of the A: drive and Windows XP.

I never once experienced this problem with DOS, Win 3.1, Win 95 or Win 98SE

I was hoping Micro$oft would address this issue with SP-1 but alas, I don't think they did.

If it were me, I would temporarily connect another floppy drive to the two cables that are connected to the unit in the Dell box and see if it will fly.

Daddad

 

Thanks for clarifying Daddad. As said though I don't have any good reason to really need a working floppy on this box, and umplugging the connections, opening the box etc.. is time I could spend doing something else more worthwhile.

I too have not ever had a problem with a pc floppy. Although I did have continueing problems on my old Atari ST 3.5" floppy drive, though that I understand was a hardware issue (alignment) on the unit itself.

Anyway, with CD booting and another win box to make floppies when needed (like couple days ago when this came up) that floppy is deprecated on my lan. Of course if and when I do need to go into the box again I'll certainly reseat the cables.

Could be that last year when I added memory accidentally knocked one of the cables out of position.