Myownbiz,

Thank you for using the Dell Community Forum.
The external floppy for the 5100 is a specific USB drive.
You need to make sure you purchase a drive that is specifically designed for use with the Inspiron 5100, 5150 or 1100 systems.
The drive can either be inserted into the media bay, or be attached externally using the USB cable.

Part#.........Description:
9W031.........External USB Floppy Drive, TEAC (should include usb cable)

I am trying to erase the hard drive on my Inspiron 1100.  I was directed by an online page to run a debug program, which installed the debug program onto a floppy disk.  I was to then keep the disk in my (external) A drive and restart the computer, and the floppy disk should run Debug while in dos.  But my computer seemed not to recognize the disk, or else the install was defective, because Windows XP started normally- I tried this several times, and even tried forcing a floppy boot by pressing F12.  None of this worked or changed anything.

    Could this problem be caused by the fact that the floppy drive is connected to the computer by a USB port?  Is there any way to fix this?

                                              Topher

would a simple deletion of partition>repartition then format not be sufficient for erasing the hdd?

I suppose it might... but I wanted to do it 'by the book' the way the Dell knowledge base directs... anyway, I tried recreating the debug floppy, and it worked fine.

I need an external floppy drive for my Inspiron 600m--where can I get one, specs (model/part# etc.) Please help--Thanks

Rhuntermdmba,

You can purchase a floppy drive online, here.