Floppy Disk Problems

Question

I ordered a floppy drive and connecting cable from Dell, received it Monday and installed it yesterday.  It worked just fine when I tried it on one floppy disk.  Even copied a picture to it.  Today, however, it does not work!  It tells me the disk is not formatted but will not format it, telling me windows will not do it.  Also, I cannot bring up the picture I copied to that disk yesterday.  I have tried several disks.  I also tried these same disks in another computer's floppy drive today and they work just fine.    I must tell you something else as it may be the problem but am not sure.  I spoke with a Dell Tech last evening to troubleshoot my Media Reader.  I never mentioned the floppy drive to her as it seemed to be a non-issue at the time.  After a 45 minute wait, I finally spoke with the lady for about 75 minutes and the Media Reader problem was never solved.  She will send me a new one via a technician as my XPS 410 is still in warranty.  She had me install several things on my computer and I did a system restore this morning to get rid of them just in case they had caused my problem.   Any thoughts?

tr4 · Answer

Did you get an internal ribbon cable drive or a usb drive? You may want to check device manager to see if there are any conflicts

x_lab rat · Answer

New products can develop faults, or be defective out of the box. The floppy you bought is warranted for 90 days. Since that and your whole system are still in warranty, contact Tech Support for service.

That the media works fine in other computers eliminates them as the problem. "Windows cannot format" errors come back when the drive can't do much of anything. It's a bit of an unusual issue, because floppies are so simple and straightforward they hardly ever fail. On the other hand, floppy manufacture has been outsourced to China. Dogfood and toothpaste are pretty straighforward too, and look what China managed to do with those.

bessie · Answer

Thanks to both of you for your input.  It has a ribbon cable, not USB.  I guess just because it worked for a short test - not more than 5 minutes - doesn't mean it is still OK.  Also, just because it says it is OK in Device Manager doesn't mean it is OK either.  I will not go through the more than 2 hours on the phone tonight as I did last night with my Media Reader!  Must relax and think about when to contact Tech Support.  Of course, a floppy drive is not something I will miss a lot but do have an older Sony Digital camera that uses them - takes good pictures, too!  Will stick with my newer Canon for a while.

tr4 · Answer

I'd double check the cable for proper seating.  Then plan a quiet long evening with your special dell support person

bessie · Answer

I'll check that cable when the technician comes tomorrow to install a new Media Reader.  But it does recogonize the drive so bet it is seated right.  I will probably have my session with Dell on the next bad TV evening.  They aren't hard to find but I have to be in the mood, too.

tr4 · Answer

A cable ajar will allow it to be reconized but hinder data transfer.  I like internal floppies and will have one as long as I can but for the average user, an external usb floppy is easier and more transportable

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