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WinXP and flopping floppies

By berninga ·
So, I see myriad posts regarding the issue of WinXP being tempramental about reading floppies, but have yet to find a workable response.

I am admin in a school enviroment where floppies are used extensively by both faculty and students. WinXp appears to have major issues with recognizing floppies formatted in any other machine - and this is causing us a boatload of trouble.

I've tested drives, switched drives, switched diskettes, read a diskette in 3 out of 5 systems - then go back to the same systems that read it, only to have it fail, run virus scans, checked CMOS settings, danced in the light of a full moon while shaking the bones of three free range chickens and nada *sigh*.

Are there any known fixes??
Any ideas???

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by willcomp In reply to WinXP and flopping floppi ...

I have been building, repairing, and using PCs for over 15 years and am firmly convinced that quality of both floppy drives and diskettes has deteriorated in the last 5 or 6 years.

It appears to me that problems attributed to XP are actually related to drive and media quality and not the OS. I have seen the same problems with 98SE using new drives and diskettes.

I salvaged good older Panasonic and Teac floppy drives from dead PCs for use in my own PCs. OS is XP Pro. Have had no real problems with older diskettes, but newer diskettes have exhibited same problems you describe.

iMation diskettes seem to be the best now available, but they are still poor.

Key drives are rapidly replacing floppies. If all your PCs are Me, XP or 2K, Perhaps key drives are the way to go. 128MB drives can be had for under $30.00.

I would be interested in what others with extensive experience covering different OSes, PCs, drives, and media have to say about this.

Dalton

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by willcomp In reply to

Re: Markusfrei response

Don't recommend CD-RW media for students. Long format times and packet writing can be problematic.

Zip drives and disks are an option that I should have mentioned. If you shop around, should be able to find 100MB Zip drives for under $20.00 and media for $5.00 to $7.00. I have been very pleased with Zip drive performance and reliability.

Dalton

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by berninga In reply to

This didn't help me "fix" the problem, but offered good advice for finding a solution. I was hoping to get through this year (budget at a small school etc, etc)but, so it goes. Thanks!

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by rindi1 In reply to WinXP and flopping floppi ...

I've had problems with floppies on all kinds of systems, not ony those with Windows XP. Windows XP just often recognizes the problems before other OSs do, like Windows 98. New diskettes and floppy drives might help, but I'd suggest you move up to another media, like ZIP Drives or LS 120 Diskettes, or even use CD rewritables, today the drives and the media are cheap. Also, there may not be many data left today that fits onto a floppy disk.

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by berninga In reply to

Again, no fixes, but good advice. I've noticed the issue with other OS'es as well, but XP is the most prevalent. The responses here have confirmed my suspicions - unfortunately, writable CD's pack their own can of worms.

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by berninga In reply to WinXP and flopping floppi ...

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