floopy troubles!

[suenbob2]

a friends computer is having troubles with its floopy. when he goes to click on floopy in my computer an error comes up drive not accessible i tried another floopy an changed cables, no luck .also tried starting up with floopy not conected an it read that it wasnt .just to see what would happen.i believe its a windows problem but can't figure it out. i had this happen about 8 yrs ago but cant remember what i did.
thanks for any advice, bob

[Nuclear Krusader]

Can you access the floppy from DOS?

[homey]

floopy?

It could be that the floppy type has been changed in the BIOS.
If it is set to 1.2MB or 720KB, it won't read the normal 1.44MB format.

[Kubie]

homey,
A floopy is a floppy that doesn't work.
Carl

[GaryRouth]

I like Nuke's question: that would rule out a simple hardware failure or setup problem. See if you can boot to DOS, slip a floppy in & see what happens.

And of course if you can boot from the floppy drive with a bootable diskette, you know it's not the drive/cable.

And to follow up on homey's suggestion: if you haven't been into Bios Setup in a while, you can get there by pressing the key mentioned in the startup banner "Press F1 (or DEL, or F10 etc) to Enter Setup". The Floppy drive settings are usually on the first or second menu. Remember to "Save Changes & Exit" when done. If the Bios settings seems all wrong in more than one area, and you don't have a motherboard manual handy: you can always have your friend try "Save Defaults and Exit" - this will let the Bios use the defaults for all the hardware it detects.

And those floppy cables are a little tricky: it's fairly easy to have the cable in upside down, backwards, or on the wrong connector. If there's a twist in the middle of the cable, the floppy connects after that (farther away from the motherboard).

And it's entirely possible if the 2nd floppy came from a pile of used floppies, it's a goner like the 1st.

Aren't legacy devices fun
. . . Gary

[catfishjoe_1]

Drive a is the connector after the twist drive b the connector before twist. Found this out the hard way. Had the same probs. Not accessible. Check the connection your friend has. If the connector is upside down the floppy light will stay on all the time.
HTH
cat

[minsonngo]

First check to make sure the floppy cable is connected properly on both the motherboard and floppy drive end. If everything is connected fine and the floppy does not work then try another working floppy. Since you said that both floppy drives you tried are not working and you also switched floppy cables. Then you need to confirm if the floppy drives are working by trying them on another computer. If they work then the original computer may have a problem with the floppy controller on the motherboard. You may need to replace the motherboard if this is the case. Hope this helps.