[OPLINTECH] Floppy disk problems

[Aaron Bedra]

I would like to chime in here and throw a little information as to why these
things really take place...

http://www.accurite.com/FloppyPrimer.html

This link will explain the mechanics behind floppy drive misalignments and
the real reason that problems with floppy disks occur.

As much as we would all like to believe that M$ is responsible for a
backwards compatibility problem, there is no real "driver patch" that will
fix this issue.  The issue is that mechanical failure of the drives can and
will cause these problems to surface.  We deal with this problem all the
time and chose to sell the flash drives at our tech center and explain to
our patrons the real reasons why floppy drives are no longer a good idea.

One thing to really keep in mind here is to get out of the mindset that
floppy drives are still useful.  People will implicitly trust their "highly
valuable data" to a device that costs less than $1 to manufacture and a
medium that costs around $.01 to create.  The end result is that you get
what you pay for, and we as the responsible parties for gathering
information should pass that information along to those in search of it and
explain why there is no better time than now to switch over to a much less
volatile form of information storage.

My last point "I promise" is that this 3mode patch really only applies to
lo-density floppy disks (ie 720k and 1.2MB) and these disks just don't have
support built into XP for them.  That driver really only covers the ability
to format the disks.

So to answer the original question...

The above referenced article is really why there are problems with using
multiple floppy disk drives to create and modify information.


Aaron J. Bedra
Westerville Public Library






On 7/27/06 2:16 PM, "Ed Liddle" <eliddle at marysvillelib.org> wrote:

> This may shed some light on why some floppy disks work and some don't
> seem to work with windows XP.
> http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q309623
> 
> "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 any questions on 3mode drivers."
> 
> http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics/browse_thread
> /thread/20c270c1e99f11c/d9d55e04ec64e5ef?lnk=st&q=floppy+disk+reading+xp+pro&r
> num=9&hl=en#d9d55e04ec64e5ef
> 
> Link I found on google groups about floppy drive problems and windows
> xp 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> This worked out for me.
> Summary:
> Download the driver from:
> 
> http://downloads.viaarena.com/WinXPE/Oct02/XPe_3mflp132_v10.zip
> 
> And here are the steps necessary to install it (make sure there isn't a
> floppydisk in the drive!):
> 
> 1.   Download driver.
> 2.   Unzip the driver.
> 3.   Open Windows XP's Device Manager.
> 4.   Expand the "Floppy disk controllers" heading.
> 5.   Double-click the listing for "Standard floppy disk controller".
> 6.   Click the "Driver" tab and click the "Update Driver" button.
> 7.   Select the "Install from a list or specific location" button.
> 8.   Click the "Next" button.
> 9.   Select "Don't search. I will choose the driver to install."
> 10.  Click the "Next" button.
> 11.  Click the "Have Disk" button and then the "Browse" button.
> 12.  Browse to where you extracted the files.
> 13.  Double click the"VIA3MFPY.INF" file.  Then, click the "OK" button.
> 14.  "VIA 3-mode floppy controller" is now highlighted in the drivers
> list.
> 15.  Click the "Next" button to begin the driver files copy.  Click
> Finish.
> 16.  Expand the "Floppy disk drives" heading, and repeat the above
> steps.
> 17.  Once the driver is updated for your floppy drive, reboot your
> machine.
> 18.  Now you can read floppies created with earlier versions of
> Windows!!!
> 
> 
> Hope this helps