My Floppy Drive

[dazuk1972]

My external Floppy Drive has worked fine for well over a year. For some reason it doesn't seem to read floppy discs right. When I put a floppy disc in, I don't see the light come on and I don't hear the grinding sound. When I put any floppy disc in and click on the Floppy Drive icon, the floppy disc never loads. I keep getting a message appearing and it asks me is I want to format the disc or cancel. From seeing that message, it shows the Floppy Drive is installed and I see it listed in My Computer. Why doesn't it load my floppy discs anymore and why does it keep asking me if I want to format them instead?

Many thanks.

[cynthia]

To much dust inside? That's usually my issues with those.

[atifsh]

yes open the drive and clean both the heads, it usually would fix it. i used to do that with internal drive.

[doctorhardware]

Yes there is also a cleaning disk for the heads that you can buy. The one that I got has the bottle I think that it is alcohol. You place a couple of drops on the one the disk and insert into the drive. Yes the dust is what causes the drive to stop working.

[Alien Bay]

What's a 'floppy drive' ??

[MilesAhead]

What's a 'floppy drive' ??

I think it's that wheel the hamster runs in to power the PC.

[cynthia]

I think it's that wheel the hamster runs in to power the PC.

[dazuk1972]

The problem is not caused by dust because it works fine in another PC and the discs load fine. When I plugged it back into my PC it didn't work again where the same things were happening where it kept asking me if I want to format the discs.

To the ones cracking jokes, I don't mind these jokes because they are funny but please don't post them in this thread encase this thread goes off-topic and changes into a joke thread and I don't get any further help to solve my problem.

Many thanks.

[doctorhardware]

It sounds like you have a problem with your usb port on the computer. Does that computer have any other usb ports that you can try. If it does try a different port. If that port also does not work it would appear that you may have a hardware issue.

[MilesAhead]

Didn't know you had the schematic!! If mine breaks down I'll have to print this out for reference.

[dazuk1972]

It sounds like you have a problem with your usb port on the computer. Does that computer have any other usb ports that you can try. If it does try a different port. If that port also does not work it would appear that you may have a hardware issue.

I thought the same. I've had some problems with my USB's lately since I had trouble with a capture card and I wonder if the capture card messed things up. I got rid of the capture card's driver encase that was causing it and still no luck. I've tried my floppy drive in other USB sockets but still no luck. All my other external hardware is running fine apart from my printer causing a message about it running slow and me needing to use another port to speed it up but that is when I plug it into a USB adaptor.

Not to mention when I plugged a new external hard drive into a USB socket at the front that was running slow and again when I plugged it into the adaptor. When I plugged it into another USB at the back it runs fast. My USB ports were all fine until that capture card was used.

Many thanks.

[dazuk1972]

I know so far nothing helped but I just want to update things and hopefully this might help anyone help me. I bought a new external Floppy Disc drive encase my other one was faulty and still no luck. The only difference is, with my old one, everytime I put a disc in and tried to load the disc, I kept getting a message asking me if I wanted to format the dosc or not. This happened with all my discs and I know they are not corrupted discs and I know they all have data on. With my new Floppy Disc drive, the message is different. Now I have the message asking me to enter a disc in the drive when I have.

I also uninstalled the driver and re-installed the Floppy Disc drive and I got the all clear where it told me the hardware is installed and ready to use. If so, why am I always being asked to enter a disc when the discs all have data on and they are not corrupted. I've tried other USB ports and still no luck. My other external hardware works fine. It's as if my Floppy Disc drive has flopped out.

Some of you might wonder why I'm using a Flpppy Disc drive when hardly anyone uses them now and that's why we never buy a PC with an internal one now. I want to load all my old data from these discs so that I can burn them to CD's.

Many thanks.

[doctorhardware]

I am wondering now that it is an OS issue. The computer that you tested the disk drive on what OS did it have. On the computer that you had it on and stopped working, what OS did that computer have?

[dazuk1972]

I am wondering now that it is an OS issue. The computer that you tested the disk drive on what OS did it have. On the computer that you had it on and stopped working, what OS did that computer have?

I'm using the same computer now. I'm not sure what the OS is. What do I have to do to find out what my OS is? I forgot to say in my other message, one time a loud grinding noise suddenly appeared from the Floppy drive and when I re-installed it the grinding noise stopped. With my old Floppy Drive the other week there was a quiet humming sound that came out of nowhere and it doesn't do that anymore. I don't know what caused the quiet humming in my old Floppy Drive and the loud grinding in my new one. At least that was sorted by the re-installation but the reading of my discs is still not working. Also, my old Floppy Drive kept causing a message asking me if I want to format a disc or not and the new Floppy Drive kept telling me to enter a disc, now that new one is asking me if I want to format a disc or not. Both Floppy Drives as I'm sure you know work OK with another PC but I'd prefer to get them working with my PC.

Many thanks.

[atifsh]

by OS Doc means what operating system u have..