Floppy Drives

[nuknuk]

Hi there, Can anyone solve this problem. My Floppy drive was playing up, sometimes it worked fine,othrs it would not format a disk ,get stuck halve way through giving messages that disk is write protected .... I bought a new drive, now when I try to accsess keeps saying Insert disk in drive A.. any ideas????:

[timmcat]

Is the ide cable (the ribbon type) damaged, or possibly not connected correctly?

[nuknuk]

Well I will try to get a new cable ,but would the computer find the drive if it was faulty?

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

nuknuk,

Does the Light on the new drive stay on all the time? (If it does, you have the cable on backwards.)

Take Care,

Richard

[allthatglitters]

Is this the only problem or are there other problems?

[nuknuk]

well I do have an other problem but this one has been going on for the past month or so. My os is XP, somtimes it just freezes up on boot. you know when xp is loading you get the xp logo and a blue bar slides from left to right. well sometime ti just stops responding at this point. I then reset it, and try to start in safemode. It takes a long time then it starts. I then restart and it normally boots up. this happens nearly every day.

The floppy failure is recent these last two days.

[allthatglitters]

Nuknuk,
Just remembered, for the first floppy drive. Several years ago had a simular problem, found one of the children had posted a coin in the drive, coin removed, functioned satis.
Do you think you could check the drives and cables out on another machine?

[nuknuk]

hi guys, its back to the drawing board, new floppydrive, new cable, ............. keeps asking for a disk, fitted old drive with new cable, cannot write, starts reading but stops? any bright ideas???

formatted and installed xp from scratch. still same problems..
xp fails to start when it fells like it.

[timmcat]

I would now be starting to suspect the Motherboard..:{

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

nuknuk,

Have you been using the same floppy each time? (If you have, check to make sure it did not have juice or something else sticky spilled in the disk inside the protective cover. It would damage the floppy head.)

If not, the I am with timmcat. :(

Take Care,

Richard

[nuknuk]

Hi there again. Wellas things arew pointing out you are probably right it is the motherboard. I tried differend drives still the sme and the problem of booting is als leading to motherboard. Thing is I want to find a inexpensive, but reliable motherboard that takes AMD 1.2gHZ, ans SDRAM. Can any one suggest anything.
Thanks you are all a great help

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

nuknuk,

This is about as cheap as it gets. They run around $42.00 here in the U.S.:

http://images10.newegg.com/productimage/13-157-010-01.JPG

http://images10.newegg.com/productimage/13-157-010-03.JPG

But personally, I would not bother. You are better off getting an nForce2 Motherboard, an AthlonXP 2500+, and 2x256Mb of PC-3200. You will see a huge boost in performance, and the system will last you a long time.

Take Care,

Richard

[nuknuk]

Hi there, i would like to thank you all for your interest in my problem ,you have been a great help, I have done what you suggested TCS changed the battery and even reset the bios using the jumper. The computer has not failed to start once since then, but the floppy drive problem is still there. keeps asking for a disk. I tried my old drive it read data but after awhile it started telling me that the disk needed formatting.

I contacted DFI the manufactureres of the board, They told me to look for swoolen capacitors,and if that is the case they are willing to replace them.
no swollen caps are evident.

So probably I need a new board. I agree with Richard. Its more worth upgrading to a new proccessor once I am spending the mony,Trouble is I would have preferred to wait a bit more before upgrading. the asrock motherboard is an attractive solution, but it seems that it takes DDR ram while mine is SDRAM. Coorect me if I am wrong.It would make more sense to upgrade then to change the Ram and the board.

Thanks Nuk

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

nuknuk,

The motherboard I listed uses SDRAM.

Chipset: VIA KL133A + VT82C686B
RAM: 2x 168-pin DIMM support Max 2GB PC133 SDRAM

Take Care,

Richard