Floppy drive stopped working

Question

I have a Demension 8100 and the floppy drive all of a sudden stopped working. I went to Device Manager and there is a yellow exclamation point over the floppy drive tree. I followed the troubleshooting tree to fix this ( by uninstalling and installing the drivers) but it did not work. I checked the BIOS and the floppy drive is enabled. I disconnected the internal floppy cables with power off and then rebooted the computer. Then I shut down the computer and reconnected the cables to the drive and motherboard. Rebooted fine but the exclamation point is still in Device Manager.  There is nothing inside the floppy that would cause this. Very unlikely that the drive is bad, hardly used it.   What to do now??

PETER345 · Answer

See if you can boot from the floppy or access it from DOS. If you can't then replace it. Otherwise, it is a Windows problem. I'm not sure if the Dell diagnostics have a floppy test or not. You might check.

Peter

shesagordie · Answer

BonanzaSLT

Replace the floppy drive.
The floppy drive is considered a disposable item, it is not economical to repair, due to it's low replacement cost.

Bev.

Please don't send me questions about your system by DCF Messenger.
Post the issue in the appropriate Board, where they will be answered.

x_lab rat · Answer

Only substitution can narrow this down.  The mark in DM suggests interface error, but dust in the track zero sensor can be an interface error.  That's supposed to be reported in POST with a 'press F1 to continue' message.  But then floppy drives are just supposed to work.   Everything in the chain--drive, cable, power, port/chipset, even Windows--is suspect.  Do you have a bootable floppy?  Will it boot?  That points strongly to Windows.  Not boot?  Back where you started.  Reseat the power cable to the floppy.  Does it light up when power is first turned on?  But again, power interruption to the floppy should show up in POST.   Ideally, borrow a drive and its cable and substitute them to determine if the problem is there.  If a known-good drive and cable produce the same result, the port/chipset likely has a problem.

BonanzaSLT · Answer

I followed your suggestion. And the new floppy and power cables still wont work. If it is a port/chipset problem where do I go from there? New motherboard?   Thanks

x_lab rat · Answer

It is not practical to replace a motherboard on a system that old, just to get a floppy working.  Buy a USB floppy.

BonanzaSLT · Answer

Thanks for the response! USB it is.

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Floppy drive stopped working

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