Bad Floppy Drive?

Hi,
I have a 3 mo.old Dell Dimension E510 Desktop which is a few
weeks out of warranty, with Windows XP. I was reading some
old floppies when suddenly the floppy drive made a noise where it
sounded like it was skipping. It now cannot read/write any floppy I
insert.
When I try a "properties" right click it always shows no bytes
on the disc ( although they are there).
When I try to read a disc, I get a windows message which says
" The A Drive is not formatted, do you want to format now? "
I carefully removed the drive from the case and looked to see
if there was any label paper shreds or obvious mechanical damage.
It looks fine inside. The unit is virtually new and maybe has 10 minutes
of actual use.
Can I assume that the drive is defective? I dont want to replace
it if it is an odd software issue, but I feel confident in installing a
new one if necessary.
Thanks!
Mechanic

 

Bad Floppy cont.

PeteC,
Thanks for the reply.
I tried the uninstall/install and reboot. I get the
same problem and error message.
I will try substituting a working drive... a very good
suggestion. I am hoping all the connectors/sockets are
the same for a drive from an older computer.
Thanks!
mechanic

 

Something that can happen with old floppy disks is that the surface material can start to become loose and get caught on the reading heads.

If you find that another drive works and if you may want to read more "old" disks in the future, get a "Floppy Disk Drive Cleaner ". It may get the original drive going again (you may need to run it several times) and you can use it in case other old disks may dirty the heads again.

Matt