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Floppy Disk nedds to be reformatted and won't
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Nick Burns
Feb 1, 2004, 10:48:09 AM2/1/04
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This did the trick for me. The second fix is the one you want, just read all
first.At our school we are having all the floppy problems mentioned in this
NG.The only one that is 100% reproducable is this: take a floppy, format it
inWin9x, and put files on it. Stick it in an XP PC and select "Copy
Disk"from the A: drive context menu. We get errors nearly 100% of the time.
Ifound the following fix
at:http://discuss.extremetech.com/n/mb/display.asp?webtag=extremetech&msg=21
301.1 posted by someone called cluberti. The drivers he mentions work,
butthey leave a phantom B: 5.25 drive that needs to be
disabled.-------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------I looked at everything I could find, and
everything technically SHOULD bethe same in the way Windows 98 and Windows
XP format and access floppydiskettes (FAT12, 512bytes/sector, etc). And
what did I find? As usual,things have changed (and you wouldn't know it
unless you dug deep). Thefollowing is what I found (and how I fixed it -
get this information OUTTHERE): After beating my head against the wall for a
few weeks and polling everyoneI knew personally that was running Windows XP,
I found that quite a few ofus had this problem - format and/or use a floppy
in XP, it doesn't work inWin98 (and sometimes Windows 2000 too). Format
and/or use a floppy inWindows 95, 98, ME, NT, or 2000, it no longer works in
XP (even if it workedbefore). It seemed that the brand name PC's had this
problem lessfrequently than a white box machine, but they were not immune
either -especially Compaq PC's. So, I dug around google groups for a while,
andfound LOTS of people complaining of this particular problem. However,
quitea few searches on Microsoft's site about floppies, corruption, and
WindowsXP turned up absolutely nothing of value. After LOTS of digging, I
did find this interesting Microsoft Q
article(http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q309623)
that I hadoriginally perused and thought of no use. I read it again, very
CAREFULLY,and read it over a few times more to make sure what I was reading
was reallythere. If you're interested, read it in all it's glory on the
Microsoftsite and be amazed - then come back (open a new tab or window! :O)
here forthe fix. For those of you not inclined to visit Microsoft.com (and
you know who youare ;O), here's the interesting tidbit (and the root of the
problem): "Windows XP supports formatting only the 1.44MB disk format.
Three-modefloppy drives (drives that are capable of reading/writing with
720KB, 1.2MBand 1.44MB 3.5" disks) requires special driver support, and
support for thisfeature is not included in Windows XP. Some 3mode FD drivers
may be installed on PCs with Windows XP by OEMs,although Microsoft does not
provide the end-user support for 3mode drivers.Please contact your OEM
(Original Equipment Manufacturer) if you have anyquestions on 3mode
drivers." Why did they remove something that every other version of Windows
has? Idon't know either. Nonetheless, support is gone in the Microsoft
floppydriver for Windows XP. Now, I have two white box PC's - one with a
Mitsumi floppy and one with aSony floppy disk drive. Both drives support
reading/writing/formatting of720K, 1.2MB and 1.44MB floppies (hence "3mode"
floppy). Notice in the Qarticle that if the drive supports formatting of
anything more than 1.44MBfloppies, it isn't supported! Since *most* floppy
disk drives from Japanesevendors (Sony, Mitsumi, etc) are 3 mode, does this
mean a lot of people willbe in the same boat? It appears so. It so happens
that my 2 machines were running Windows XP Pro - as previouslystated, one
has a Mitsumi floppy, and one has a Sony floppy. Both were quadbooting,
running Debian Linux (Woody), Windows 98 SE, Windows 2000 (one hasSP2, one
has SP3), and Windows XP Professional (one has SP1, one does not).Both PC's
were basically identical in software loads, and both PC's had thesame
problem; XP wouldn't read a floppy diskette formatted in Linux orWin98, and
Linux and Win98 were running ON THE SAME MACHINE. I could formatthe floppy
to 1.44MB in Windows XP, but then I couldn't read it in Win98(Linux would
read the floppy); swapping formatted floppies amongst machinesproduced the
same results. This meant that it wasn't a hardware problem, itwas an XP
problem - more specifically, a driver problem. So I went looking for a 3mode
floppy driver. First, I tried the Windows2000 stock floppy driver. No go.
I tried the Windows ME floppy driver.Again, no go. I tried the Windows 98
floppy driver. Nada. It took me a day or two more, but I found one at
http://www.viaarena.com.This driver is for Windows XP Embedded, but works
just fine in Windows XP.I had to force the driver in (Windows XP wouldn't
take it using the normaldriver update process), but I now have no problems
with my floppy drive. Isuggest you download this before they pull it in
violation of the DMCA orsomething ;O) Here's the link to the
driver:http://downloads.viaarena.com/WinXPE/Oct02/XPe_3mflp132_v10.zip And
here are the steps necessary to install it (make sure there isn't afloppy
disk in the drive!): 1. Download driver. 2. Unzip the driver somewhere (I
keep all of my drivers inC:\Drivers\<Driver>, so I extracted it to
C:\Drivers\3mode). 3. Open Windows XP's Device Manager, expand the "Floppy
disk controllers"heading, and double-click the listing for "Standard floppy
disk controller". 4. Click the "Driver" tab, then click the "Update Driver"
button. 5. Select the "Install from a list or specific location" radio
button andclick the "Next" button. 6. Select the "Don't search. I will
choose the driver to install." radiobutton and click the "Next" button. 7.
Click the "Have Disk" button; then, click the "Browse" button. Browse tothe
location that you extracted the files to in step 2 and double click
the"VIA3MFPY.INF" file. Then, click the "OK" button. 8. You should now have
"VIA 3-mode floppy controller" highlighted in thedrivers list. Click the
"Next" button to begin the driver file copy. Once
first.At our school we are having all the floppy problems mentioned in this
NG.The only one that is 100% reproducable is this: take a floppy, format it
inWin9x, and put files on it. Stick it in an XP PC and select "Copy
Disk"from the A: drive context menu. We get errors nearly 100% of the time.
Ifound the following fix
at:http://discuss.extremetech.com/n/mb/display.asp?webtag=extremetech&msg=21
301.1 posted by someone called cluberti. The drivers he mentions work,
butthey leave a phantom B: 5.25 drive that needs to be
disabled.-------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------I looked at everything I could find, and
everything technically SHOULD bethe same in the way Windows 98 and Windows
XP format and access floppydiskettes (FAT12, 512bytes/sector, etc). And
what did I find? As usual,things have changed (and you wouldn't know it
unless you dug deep). Thefollowing is what I found (and how I fixed it -
get this information OUTTHERE): After beating my head against the wall for a
few weeks and polling everyoneI knew personally that was running Windows XP,
I found that quite a few ofus had this problem - format and/or use a floppy
in XP, it doesn't work inWin98 (and sometimes Windows 2000 too). Format
and/or use a floppy inWindows 95, 98, ME, NT, or 2000, it no longer works in
XP (even if it workedbefore). It seemed that the brand name PC's had this
problem lessfrequently than a white box machine, but they were not immune
either -especially Compaq PC's. So, I dug around google groups for a while,
andfound LOTS of people complaining of this particular problem. However,
quitea few searches on Microsoft's site about floppies, corruption, and
WindowsXP turned up absolutely nothing of value. After LOTS of digging, I
did find this interesting Microsoft Q
article(http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q309623)
that I hadoriginally perused and thought of no use. I read it again, very
CAREFULLY,and read it over a few times more to make sure what I was reading
was reallythere. If you're interested, read it in all it's glory on the
Microsoftsite and be amazed - then come back (open a new tab or window! :O)
here forthe fix. For those of you not inclined to visit Microsoft.com (and
you know who youare ;O), here's the interesting tidbit (and the root of the
problem): "Windows XP supports formatting only the 1.44MB disk format.
Three-modefloppy drives (drives that are capable of reading/writing with
720KB, 1.2MBand 1.44MB 3.5" disks) requires special driver support, and
support for thisfeature is not included in Windows XP. Some 3mode FD drivers
may be installed on PCs with Windows XP by OEMs,although Microsoft does not
provide the end-user support for 3mode drivers.Please contact your OEM
(Original Equipment Manufacturer) if you have anyquestions on 3mode
drivers." Why did they remove something that every other version of Windows
has? Idon't know either. Nonetheless, support is gone in the Microsoft
floppydriver for Windows XP. Now, I have two white box PC's - one with a
Mitsumi floppy and one with aSony floppy disk drive. Both drives support
reading/writing/formatting of720K, 1.2MB and 1.44MB floppies (hence "3mode"
floppy). Notice in the Qarticle that if the drive supports formatting of
anything more than 1.44MBfloppies, it isn't supported! Since *most* floppy
disk drives from Japanesevendors (Sony, Mitsumi, etc) are 3 mode, does this
mean a lot of people willbe in the same boat? It appears so. It so happens
that my 2 machines were running Windows XP Pro - as previouslystated, one
has a Mitsumi floppy, and one has a Sony floppy. Both were quadbooting,
running Debian Linux (Woody), Windows 98 SE, Windows 2000 (one hasSP2, one
has SP3), and Windows XP Professional (one has SP1, one does not).Both PC's
were basically identical in software loads, and both PC's had thesame
problem; XP wouldn't read a floppy diskette formatted in Linux orWin98, and
Linux and Win98 were running ON THE SAME MACHINE. I could formatthe floppy
to 1.44MB in Windows XP, but then I couldn't read it in Win98(Linux would
read the floppy); swapping formatted floppies amongst machinesproduced the
same results. This meant that it wasn't a hardware problem, itwas an XP
problem - more specifically, a driver problem. So I went looking for a 3mode
floppy driver. First, I tried the Windows2000 stock floppy driver. No go.
I tried the Windows ME floppy driver.Again, no go. I tried the Windows 98
floppy driver. Nada. It took me a day or two more, but I found one at
http://www.viaarena.com.This driver is for Windows XP Embedded, but works
just fine in Windows XP.I had to force the driver in (Windows XP wouldn't
take it using the normaldriver update process), but I now have no problems
with my floppy drive. Isuggest you download this before they pull it in
violation of the DMCA orsomething ;O) Here's the link to the
driver:http://downloads.viaarena.com/WinXPE/Oct02/XPe_3mflp132_v10.zip And
here are the steps necessary to install it (make sure there isn't afloppy
disk in the drive!): 1. Download driver. 2. Unzip the driver somewhere (I
keep all of my drivers inC:\Drivers\<Driver>, so I extracted it to
C:\Drivers\3mode). 3. Open Windows XP's Device Manager, expand the "Floppy
disk controllers"heading, and double-click the listing for "Standard floppy
disk controller". 4. Click the "Driver" tab, then click the "Update Driver"
button. 5. Select the "Install from a list or specific location" radio
button andclick the "Next" button. 6. Select the "Don't search. I will
choose the driver to install." radiobutton and click the "Next" button. 7.
Click the "Have Disk" button; then, click the "Browse" button. Browse tothe
location that you extracted the files to in step 2 and double click
the"VIA3MFPY.INF" file. Then, click the "OK" button. 8. You should now have
"VIA 3-mode floppy controller" highlighted in thedrivers list. Click the
"Next" button to begin the driver file copy. Once
"anonymous" <anon...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:A6C717BF-48A0-40FB...@microsoft.com...
> Hi guys. I am using an Imation 2HD IBM formatted 1.44 MB floppy disk and
have completed several file swaps with my Windows 95 and XP computer but now
when I pop it in either computer it says "The disk in drive A is not
formatted. Do you want to format it now?" When I click Yes and push Start
in the format window it says, "You cannot do a Quick Format because the disk
is not formatted, its capacity does not match, or there is no disk in the
drive. Click OK to perform a Full format using the capacity you specified."
When I click OK it sits for a second then an error mesesage comes up saying,
"Windows could not format this disk because an error occurred while trying
to format the file allocation table area. This disk is damaged and may need
to be replaced." Is there a way to get around this, or is the disk actually
damaged and do I need to get a new one? Thanks for you're help.
Nick Burns
Feb 1, 2004, 11:18:06 AM2/1/04
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