Windows XP cant see a floppy drive

WindowsXPforever

WindowsXPforever

Hello!

So i have a Pentium 4 HT computer and it has a floppy drive and XP cant find it.I dont know what model or something the drive is but i just want to have a working floppy drive.
 
in the bios check under something like integrated devices or legacy devices or drive configuration and make sure the floppy drive is ON or not disabled. I have a dell dimension 3000 with the floppy disabled.
 
I can tell you from personal experience that XP has no problems whatsoever with reading/writing floppy disks if your floppy drive is good. I have an ancient Compaq Presario 7360, manufactured in 2000. It has a 500MHz AMD K6-2, 512MB of RAM, a 120GB IDE HDD, a CD-RW drive, and a floppy drive. The floppy drive is bog standard, the same one the system came with, and 18 years later it still works fine under Windows XP (I've also run 98SE on it, which is what it was designed to run, but XP makes it possible to use more software). I'd still be running that K6-2 on a daily basis if it wasn't for the weak USB 1.1 ports that don't always work when you boot the system up (I've thought about getting a USB 2.0 card, but it seems excessive for a K6-2, and better suited for a Pentium III).

My DC5000 SFF also has a floppy drive, though unfortunately it has died. If I'm not mistaken the final systems released with floppy drives integrated, and/or motherboards that have a built-in option for installing a floppy drive (i.e., without the need arising of having to connect a USB floppy drive), came out during the Core 2 Duo era (and to a lesser degree first-generation i3/i5/i7 systems).
 
Floppies don't use external drivers. It's a tiny driver included in all operating systems. If you don't see it after enabling it in bios and choosing the proper size (1.44) it means its dead, which is normal since they use a cheap motor and probably a rubber band to make it spin. The other thing you can try is switching the cable backwards because some floppies have different cable layout or some pins cut.
 
Do you have 'TweakUI' installed?
You can disable drives A:\ through Z:\ with it. I have A & B disabled there.
I should say they are not actually disabled, but will not show up in 'My Computer'
 
I STILL keep a floppy drive (Not USB) on a very long data and power cable, so I can plug in and use the drive OUTSIDE of a machine's casing.

It gets used for:

1 Provision to load SATA/RAID drivers when installing XP (The F6 option)

2 BIOS Updates. Typically XP era machines utilise update from a floppy.

3 As alternative to optical drive to boot a recalcitrant machine.

There are alternatives, but the above always simple and straight forward. Would not use them to store DATA, other than in these instances, though!
 
For me, floppy drives are still VERY useful. It looks like you know how to get the most out of yours, priscus!
 
I still have a 5.25 inch floppy drive.

It languished at the bottom of a junk box for 35 years, parts of it, especially the huge flywheel got very corroded.

It would have stayed there, but I recently discovered, 'Harvard Graphics' (Business presentation software from the 1980's) on 5.25 disks in the same box.

Curiosity got the better of me, so I hauled it out and temporarily fixed in a machine running Dos!

It groaned and it clanked, all very steampunk, but it worked flawlessly!

They are old enough to have become quite expensive (ebay) so perhaps I should offer it, as I no longer need it.
 
Those old DOS-era machines were and are bulletproof. Durable as you can get, and built to last a lot more than the PCs of today. If you can get good $ for your floppy drive, I'd definitely look into selling it...unless you see enough sentimental value to keep it. Based on your recent discovery, there may still be adventures left to be had with that drive!
 
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