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With the advent of the rewritable CD (CD-RW) many people are
predicting the demise of the venerable floppy disk. Today's
computers can even boot from the CD drive. But if your computer
is not connected to a network, there is no quicker way to
back-up or share a file.
Problems with the floppy drive are rare, but that is not the
case with floppy disks themselves. Floppy disks are made super
cheap and are very unreliable. Also, floppy disks are sensitive
to magnetic fields. If you place a floppy disk on top of your
monitor, your computer case, or any metal object, you risk
corrupting the disk. If you have a problem reading a floppy
disk, it is almost always a bad disk.
Use the following troubleshooting guide:
- Can't read a floppy disk
If you have another system, check to see if the drive in that
system is able to read the disk. If the disk works in a
different drive, begin by checking for obvious problems. It is
not unknown to find an object like a Post-It note or the metal
slide protector from a previous disk stuck inside a drive.
- Can't write to a floppy disk
Again, begin by checking for obvious problems. Make sure the
floppy disk is not write protected. On a 3.5" disk you should be
able to see through the hole in the upper-right corner of the
disk (looking at the labeled side of the disk). If there are no
files already on the disk, try to re-format it.
- Can't boot from a floppy drive
If your operating system is Windows 2000, or Windows XP
Professional, you can't boot from a floppy disk with these
systems. Otherwise, make sure the disk you have is a bootable
disk. It needs to have been created as a "startup disk" or
formatted with the "copy system files" option button selected.
- More complex problems
In order to start faster, today's systems are usually set in the
BIOS to boot from the hard disk drive first. Check the boot
sequence in the BIOS setup. If the boot sequence starts with the
letter of a hard disk drive (like C:), and that drive is having
a problem, the system will never even attempt to boot from the
floppy disk drive. Go to BIOS setup, and set the boot sequence
to start with A.
In some companies, the floppy drives are disabled for security
reasons. This is done by either disabling the onboard FDD
controller in the BIOS setup, or by removing the power cable or
data cable from the drive inside the computer.
- Weird problems
Sometimes when a technician is working inside a computer, they
will temporarily remove the data cable from the floppy drive in
order to get easier access to another component. They may fail
to replace the cable properly, or put the cable on backwards. If
the floppy drive's LED is always on, the data cable may be
reversed.
Sometimes a floppy disk can be read on the system that it was
originally formatted on, but cannot be read on another system
and vice versa. This is usually caused by the fact that the head
of the floppy drive on one system is out of alignment.
=> As with all Windows(tm) systems, sometimes the operating
system gets confused. If your system can't recognize the floppy
drive or can't read any floppy disks, try rebooting the system.
If you are having a problem with a floppy disk, remember they
are made super cheap and are not meant to be reliable, but they
can still serve a very utilitarian purpose.
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