Re: Cannot read any disk in floppy drive

On Sun, 16 Dec 2007 14:49:28 -0700, "Ken Blake, MVP"
<kblake@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Sun, 16 Dec 2007 13:00:30 -0800, Donald L McDaniel
<orthocross@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Sun, 16 Dec 2007 11:28:20 -0700, "Ken Blake, MVP"
<kblake@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Sun, 16 Dec 2007 10:15:13 -0800, Donald L McDaniel
<orthocross@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Here's my solution:
Pull the darned floppy out of the machine, and throw all your floppies away. If
they're older than a year or so, the magnetic charge on the surface of the media
is pretty much completely discharged by now.


I don't agree. True, floppies are not the most reliable of media. But
that's not to say that all, or even most, floppies are unreadable
after a year or so. I have often successfully read much older
floppies.


I haven't owned a computer which had a floppy drive for at least 4 years now.
They are ANCIENT, and manufacturers were right to discontinue adding one to
their newer off-the-shelf machines.


And I, on the other hand, have floppy drives in all my machines
(except my laptop) and would choose to have one installed if I bought
a new computer tomorrow.

True, one needs them very seldom these days. But considering that they
can be bought for around $10 US or so, I want one just in case. There
are situations in which they come in very handy, such as loading SATA
drivers.



That may be true for you.
But in my case:
1) My Intel motherboard will not allow the use of on-board floppies (so says the
builder at Pacific Solutions, Inc. in Portland, OR.) Unless, of course, she was
lying to me.


I don't know whether that's true or not, but I do know that *most*
motherboards support floppies without a problem. To verify what she
said, just look at the motherboard (or its documentation) to see if
there's a connector for a floppy cable.\

Well, I did want a floppy in, but she said they put one in, and it failed to
work, so she concluded that floppies were a no-go for my particular motherboard.
Now that my machine is home, the warranty is now in effect. She claims that my
warranty does not allow me to open the case, or I would put one in and see for
myself. Since my brother paid for this machine, he refuses to allow me to open
the case till the warranty is run out (about a year).

However, I do know that there is a floppy connector on the motherboard.


2) NO need to install SATA driver in my machine. Vista has one for my on-board
controller OOB.



OK, but SATA drivers were just an example. Needs for floppies
sometimes come up. Those needs are certainly rare, but for many people
they are not non-existent. Some people may occasionally want to boot
to an MS-DOS diskette, for example.

I haven't had such a need since I switched from 9x to XP. With Vista, I have no
such need. It simply no longer exists (at least, it doesn't exist for me. I'm
sure it exists for many others.)

I would never use a version of Linux which required a floppy to start its
installation, or boot the machine up.


Although I can't remember the last time I used my floppy drive, I am
much more comfortable having it there just on case. It cost me next to
nothing, and, as I said, I'll have one in my next computer too.

I would also be much more comfortable with one there. When she was unable (she
claimed) to install one and have it work, she put a multi-SD thingie in. It's
not very helpful, so I think it was a waste of my brother's money.

Since I do not have the option of opening the case (how anyone would find out, I
don't know. But I am honest to a "tee", and wouldn't be able to live with
myself if I opened the case at this time.)

Anyway, the Aussies have a saying, "Every cat has its own rat."
Very true.

--

Donald L. McDaniel
Please reply to the original thread and newsgroup.
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Relevant Pages

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