A: drive not working

[MaCready]

Hmm,I spoke to soon,It's not working again ,if I click on it it takes a minute then sez,device not accesible,just like before.

ribbon cable fine,device worked fine before I installed all the updates.

Now it doesnt work,again.


If I send a file to drive A, I get there is no disc in the drive,even when there obviously Is.
:(

[jdc2000]

Can you boot using a boot diskette? If yes, then there may be a software problem. If not, then it is probably hardware.

[MaCready]

hello,

Yes the boot disc I made when installing windows works upon startup.

This problem has been ongoing since I got the system,

When I first got it I assummed that it was a faulty drive,and I replaced it,the A drive then worked for awhile ,then stopped again.

Last night I reinstalled the operating system,when I had first installed 98SE the A drive worked fine,now it doesn't.

I've just learned to live without it,and I'm thinking I might just buy a USB drive of the same type,that should end my problems.

[Murf]

Just for grins:

Reboot and get into SETUP (usually DELETE KEY), check if the floppy {A:} is set to 1,44mb

Also put a clean floppy in and try and format it? Does it format? If it does, then your floppies could be bad...

[MaCready]

Ok I checked in setup,it is set to 1.44 mb,3.5 inch disc.

If I left click on the drive I get device not accessable.

If I attempt to format the drive I get there is no disc in the drive or the door is open.

In the device manager it says the device is working properly. :dizzy:

[MaCready]

More info- I put in a disc I know is good with data on it,I went to My computer and right clicked on the A drive,checking the properties.

It says there is 0 bytes ,0 bytes free like there is no disc present. :eek:

[jdc2000]

If your boot diskette still works, but the drive doesn't work under Windows, then I still suspect a software problem. You may have some 'phantom' copies of the device driver installed under Windows. They won't show in normal mode, but will under Safe Mode. Or, there are viruses that will cause this problem.

If you can boot to a DOS prompt using the boot diskette, do so and put one of the floppies with files on it that you have been unable to access under Windows in the drive and see if you can use the DIR command to get a directory of it. If you can, then you can try copying a file from it to the hard drive. If that works, then you have a software problem.

[MaCready]

I used a trial version of Etrust anti virus and it found nothing .

I did what you said and was able to copy the files to the c: drive no problem when booting from the 3.5 startup disc.

[jdc2000]

If the drives works fine in DOS, then the hardware is fine. The problem has to be a software one in Windows. Try booting into Safe Mode and see if there are any duplicate devices or other problems in Device Manager.

[MaCready]

Hi,

I booted into safe mode and had a look,I didnt see anything unusual other than it said device status unavailible in safe mode.
What am I looking for exactly?

More info- If I restart system in pure dos mode I cant access the drive.
It only works in dos if the win 98se startup disc is used.

[Murf]

When you use a boot disk to boot, it has system files on it. Since it does read it, then as JDC2000 said its a software or a windows problem not the hardware itself.

In safe mode what you are looking for is click the + sign next to the entry Floppy...

Is there more then one entry listed? if so delete both entries (even if one entry delete it) right click and remove.

Now re-boot and windows should re-load the driver for the floppy.

[MaCready]

Hello,

I removed the single driver that was under the floppy drive,then rebooted,windows created the new drivers.

Then I attempted to send a simple zip file to the A:\ drive,got no disc in drive,right after I had put one in.

Basically i'm back to square one :)

[Murf]

This problem has been ongoing since I got the system,

When I first got it I assummed that it was a faulty drive,and I replaced it,the A drive then worked for awhile ,then stopped again.

Two things come to mind.

1. Bad floppy data cable
2. Floppy controller on the motherboard is bad.

You replaced the drive, did you replace the cable?

[MaCready]

Yes I did replace the cable with a new one.

So that must mean I have a bad MB floppy controller which certainly makes sense,however I'm just going to live with it.

I can buy a USB floppy drive.


Thanks for taking the time to work it out,all of you.