floppy drive error code 41? But the drive and its cable tests good.

Question

The floppy drive in my dimension 4100 (XP Pro) has disappeared. I have tested the floppy drive in another dell, with its 34 pin cable, and the cable and the drive work there. I have tried a different, working floppy drive with different, working cable in the 4100 and these do not work in it. The 4100 gives a consistent message in device manager: Windows successfully loaded the device driver for this hardware but cannot find the hardware device. (Code 41). Since the message appears with the new, good floppy drive, a simple drive replacement will not work. I removed the drive completely, replaced after second restart, got a new hardware, floppy drive found message (so the floppy's power supply must be good, right?). Windows then threw off an error message that a problem occurred during the installation and that my hardware might not work properly. sure enough, the code 41 error reappeared in device manager after this new install attempt. This forum has advice on removing upper and lower filters in the registry when a code 41 error appears for cd/dvd drives. Would this work for a floppy drive? I'm hugely respectful of registry tinkering, so I need your advice before I try it. Please help, and thanks. Olivia

PETER345 · Answer

A simple suggestion first: Make sure the floppy is enabled in the BIOS setup. Maybe your battery is going and the floppy setting has flipped. Even if it looks enabled, I would disable it, save, enable it and save again. A few problems have been solved this way.

Peter

Livjones · Answer

Thanks , Peter, for answering. actually, I had uninstalled the floppy drive, then reinstalled it in the bios and continued to get the same message. should have mentioned that. But after a lot of aggravation I found http://support.microsoft.com/kb/812489 titled: The floppy disk drive is missing from the My Computer folder. This suggested that corrupted or incorrect keys in the registry caused my floppy drive problems. I followed its advice on eliminating filters in the registry, and, wow, I have a floppy drive again. I'm posting this so someone else with this problem can find an expense-free solution. again, thanks for your answer. This forum is a great reason to stick with Dell products. olivia

PETER345 · Answer

Good job! Thanks for the follow up.

I didn't know about the UpperFilters and LowerFilters issue.

On a side note, I picked up a USB floppy used for a few bucks and now use that instead of any internal floppies. It really works great and is very simple. New machines boot fine from it.

Peter

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floppy drive error code 41? But the drive and its cable tests good.

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