Floppy drive

check it's detected/enabled in BIOS? See if it'll attempt to boot from floppy if you set A: as the first boot device?

First make sure its a known good disc?

Often the stepper motor gets stuck or if its one of those driven by a little belt they stretch as well and the thing does not rotate. Brian

Just watch it! I did this a few years ago with some floppies. First one worked, second one froze the computer up. They are all back in the loft.

If its enabled in the BIOS then drive a: should show in Windows Explorer regardless of whether the drive actually works just so long as a signal is detected in the POST on startup/reboot. If its enabled in the BIOS and no signal is detected as a result of the drive being totally dead, disconnected, whatever then it should show a message "Drive a: not detected/present" or similar on startup.

michael adams

...

Just because power is connected to the drive doesn't mean that the ribbon cable is. You may have upgraded in the past and simply not bothered to plug the data cable in thinking 'why bother' ?

You mean I have to take off the cover?:-)

This PC is a refurbished educational Stone so it is quite possible the floppy was considered redundant.

We have a pending house move and it is quite possible *spaced Tim* will be called in to help get me back on line. If so, he can run through the bios? and possibly spot what is going on.

If it is ex-educational then there is a strong possibility that the floppy drives had their data cable unplugged or even cut to stop students trying to reboot with virus-laden floppies.

So I took off the cover:-)

The alternative was doing some rotavating in the rain!

No cut or disconnected cables associated with the floppy drive.

A push button on the front panel (unknown purpose as I don't have a manual) *broken ring forming an arrow*, has been unplugged from the mother board.

The floppy drive light comes on briefly on re-start. But nothing happens on plugging in a diskette.

Other than my daughters university thesis, I don't think there is anything vital going astray. I copied most stuff to DVD before junking the last m/c.

to be honest, a USB based floppy drive is probably less hassle

There seem to be possible issues with some versiuons of Windows.

That's cheap!

Windows 7 32 bit.

Should be good. Frankly unless uyou have it as a hobby, folling with old hardware is not worth it ...unless its valuable...

(Currently staring at the guts of perhaps the most expensive HiFi turntable ever made - Revox B790 that won't turn its platter)

My pleasure. ;-)

I wonder if the disconnected front panel button is 'Reset'? The only other button I can think of was the old 'Turbo' (Brake?) but that's not been used to *years*.

So, do you have a Reset button on that PC Tim (often near the power and sometimes recessed against accidental pressing (don't press it when the PC is on normally as a way of testing. Best boot into the BIOS and test it from there).

It could be that that particular diskette is faulty (though you probably tried more than one) or that the drive is but even if it was I'd expect it to show us as a drive on Windows. If the interface is enabled in the BIOS and the drive not disabled in same, it should appear under My Computer as a floppy drive symbol?

I should still have your old PC in the heap and if that has a floppy drive I can test it and put it in your current PC if required. ;-)

As mentioned elsewhere, USB / floppy drives aren't expensive but would be another thing to be kicking about.

Good luck with the move. If you hired a removals lorry you could just walk all your belongings though it to River Cottage. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

In message snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com, T i m snipped-for-privacy@spaced.me.uk> writes

There are 3 buttons all moderately recessed. They each have obscure (to me) symbols. The main stop/start has a backwards C and an inserted hyphen. A fully recessed button has a side view cylinder and the other a backwards circular arrow.

I wouldn't bother about the old XP drive. This one is close mounted with the CD drive and not easily got at.

I expect it is not called up in the bios so a look may solve the issue.

For £10.00 I can copy stuff and then throw the drive away.

A fair bit has moved already by fork lift truck and flat barrow:-)

Is that 'Power button?'

Could that be the hard drive activity light?

I think that's reset.

I'm not sure any PC mechanics would bother me. ;-)

It might be in the Onboard Peripherals section or some such. Floppy drive controller Enable / Disable.

Or I lend you mine. ;-)

Did you sort the leaky ram on your loader (or was that the fork lift you mention)?

Cheers, T i m

In message snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com, T i m snipped-for-privacy@spaced.me.uk> writes

Yes.

If it is, it doesn't do anything.

OK.

Yes. All done. Rather epic loading that cylinder into the Zafira. I now have a spare set of hardwood semi circular chocks!