Problems with 3.5" Floppies. I'm very puzzled.

[Ronstang]

I have been having similar problems with floppies for a couple of years now. Disks that read fine an hour or a few minutes before would report as not being formatted. Sometimes they could be reformatted and sometimes not. I have lost the data on floppies that I made 1 minute before. Each time I had trouble I tried different drives/cables/systems etc. and the problem persisted. To this day I have never solved the puzzle. I bought brand new disks and half of them reported as not being formatted and some simply didn't work anymore a few days after putting data on them. Even now I cam pull some floppies out of storage and I can guarrantee that at least half will show this problem.......like I said, I am still confused too.

 

[PlatinumGold]

Originally posted by: Ronstang
I have been having similar problems with floppies for a couple of years now. Disks that read fine an hour or a few minutes before would report as not being formatted. Sometimes they could be reformatted and sometimes not. I have lost the data on floppies that I made 1 minute before. Each time I had trouble I tried different drives/cables/systems etc. and the problem persisted. To this day I have never solved the puzzle. I bought brand new disks and half of them reported as not being formatted and some simply didn't work anymore a few days after putting data on them. Even now I cam pull some floppies out of storage and I can guarrantee that at least half will show this problem.......like I said, I am still confused too.

just today,

so i went out bought brand new floppies. tried to format them in one machine, same error.

then i go to my other machine and don't try formating (as they are already formated new) and copy files to drive, NO PROBLEMS.

WTF is that?

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: PlatinumGold

Originally posted by: JaydenChris
no one has asked this yet, so i will.

what is it that you need to copy to a floppy that's so important not to either email or put on a different media?

scsi drivers.

win2k3 server when installing insists that i put in floppies to install them.

A big hand to Microsoft for that moronic "floppy drive required" thing!!

Anyway, one other thing to try, which has helped me already with read/write errors - use a drive cleaner on the thing. In case you've never seen one before, it's just a floppy-disk, but instead of magnetic media, it has a woven fiber cleaning disc, and you put some of the included cleaner (rubbing alcohol) on it, and then put it in the drive. Then you just attempt to access the drive, which runs it, and cleans the heads. Other than that, since you've swapped drives (maybe all your drives are dusty?) and cables, maybe it is just a bad floppy controller.

 

[Ronstang]

Originally posted by: PlatinumGold

Originally posted by: Ronstang
I have been having similar problems with floppies for a couple of years now. Disks that read fine an hour or a few minutes before would report as not being formatted. Sometimes they could be reformatted and sometimes not. I have lost the data on floppies that I made 1 minute before. Each time I had trouble I tried different drives/cables/systems etc. and the problem persisted. To this day I have never solved the puzzle. I bought brand new disks and half of them reported as not being formatted and some simply didn't work anymore a few days after putting data on them. Even now I cam pull some floppies out of storage and I can guarrantee that at least half will show this problem.......like I said, I am still confused too.

just today,

so i went out bought brand new floppies. tried to format them in one machine, same error.

then i go to my other machine and don't try formating (as they are already formated new) and copy files to drive, NO PROBLEMS.

WTF is that?

BINGO.....same problem I have all the time with floppies.

 

[JaydenChris]

Originally posted by: PlatinumGold

Originally posted by: JaydenChris
no one has asked this yet, so i will.

what is it that you need to copy to a floppy that's so important not to either email or put on a different media?

scsi drivers.

win2k3 server when installing insists that i put in floppies to install them.

I see...good point

** I use a floppy for my wireless connection (I guess floppies are struggling to stay alive somehow)

 

[mgycqd]

I may be way off base here, but is it possible that Mode 3 floppy support has been activated in the BIOS? That might explain the problem.

Hope this helps!

 

[PlatinumGold]

Originally posted by: mgycqd
I may be way off base here, but is it possible that Mode 3 floppy support has been activated in the BIOS? That might explain the problem.

Hope this helps!

what is mode 3 and what does it do?

 

[mgycqd]

As I understand it, Mode 3 is the standard floppy format used in Japan. It is (or at least was) a standard Award BIOS option. I had a problem some time ago that sounded somewhat similar to what is described in this thread, and it turned out that I had accidentally enabled the Mode 3 support in making some changes to the BIOS. Once I disabled it, all was well again. Like I said, it's a long shot that this is the problem, but thought it worth mentioning.