Windows Not Seeing Floppy Drive

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My computer is WinXP-SP2 all patches up to date. The floppy drive (3.5in) has been installed since the computer was new. One day for no reason that I can see, Explorer failed to detect the floppy drive. Just no A drive shows in the Explorer window – starts with C:. I had not opened the case for a long time, so I assume nothing had affected the wiring. Device Manager shows a yellow circle with an exclamation mark against the floppy drive and Properties says – “Windows successfully loaded the device driver for this hardware but cannot find the hardware device. (Code 41) Click Troubleshoot to start the troubleshooter for this device.” Of course the troubleshooter did not help at all. I tried purchasing a new floppy drive, and installing that in place of the old one – same result. In the process of doing that I visually checked the wiring, which all appears to be correct with all the plugs properly seated.
The BIOS (Asus P58D2) appears to show that it has recognised the floppy, although when I selected “Hardware Monitor” the BIOS display froze – got the computer back with the old three finger salute. Everything else seems fine, but as I do use the floppy often I would like to get it back.

I would appreciate any advice as to what the cause might be.

Noel

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Can you check out the hardware by trying to boot from a floppy disk. This will let us know whether you have a Windows problem or a hardware problem.

StuartR

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Thanks Stuart,

I did that – ran a Windows Memory Check program from the floppy. It worked and incidentally assured me that the 2GB of memory is all OK. Wish I had thought of that before going out and buying a new floppy drive and going through the difficult and fiddly business of taking the old one out and putting the new one in! Oh well – a learning experience.

But – what now?

Thank you again. Noel

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I really feel for you AND will be reviewing this post with great interest as this has happened to me in the past.

One solution I had – reinstall the device from scratch with the OLD device driver. The second time, I finally gave up and purchased a new EXTERNAL Floppy drive, hooked up via the USB port. Slower, but has not failed in 5 years and counting (and protable to other machines as well).

Question, you saw the BIOS see’s the floppy but freezes in “Hardware Monitor”, have you updated the BIOS lately ?

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Edited 2/4/2008 ~1058 CST to correct spelling
Noel,

As a follow on in case you want the External Floppy, you can Google external usb floppy .

Several of the sites have the drive for ~$20.00 plus free S&H.

For Google UK, try external usb floppy.

Hope this helps.

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Thanks Scott,

I tried uninstalling the floppy drive in Device Manager, and when I rebooted there was no sign of the floppy drive in Device Manager. But when I selected Scan for Hardware Changes, the entry for the floppy came back with the same yellow exclamation mark. I had never updated the floppy drive since the computer was new, and so I assume it just re-installed the Windows driver. So again I guess that looks like a Windows problem.

Thanks for the suggestion of using a USB floppy drive – that would have been much easier than buying and installing a new drive. Oh well! But I will do that if I can not sort out why Windows has suddenly decided that it does not like floppy drives!

Noel

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Sorry Scott,

I did not answer re updating the BIOS – answer is NO – more than two years since I last updated the BIOS. And floppy has worked many times since then.

Noel

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and so I assume it just re-installed the Windows driver.

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You do not mention the brand or model number of the floppy drive. Try Google search for the brand and model for an updated device driver and install the driver manually. This is a long shot but won’t cost anything except a little time.

OR … use device manager to determine the name of the device driver and re-download it from Microsoft (or website of company named in device manager for device driver).

Good luck.

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Sorry – the new drive is a Sony MPF920 – so far have failed to find a driver – Sony says it is no longer on sale, Windows reports the current driver is “flpydisk.sys” with version no 5.1.2600.2180 – my searches on the Microsoft site have not found a later driver, so I am going nowhere.

The old drive is a Panasonic JU-256A198PC – I will see if I can get a driver for that – but I am reluctant to pull the computer apart again – it is jolly time consuming.

So thanks for the advice – but so far I am not winning – but I will keep looking.

Noel

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Unfortunately, my searches show you have the latest XP SP2 driver for flpydisk.sys.

One thought, download the device driver from microsoft website. Change the name of the device driver in c:windowssystem32driversflpydisk.sys to dlpydisk-sys.orig

Then copy the new downloaded flpydisk.sys to the c:windowssystem32drivers subdirectory.

If the old driver is in anyway corrupted, this should fix the problem. I don’t have much hope though – but it costs nothing.

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Thanks Scott, that is a smart suggestion. However I could not find the flpydisk.sys file anywhere in the Microsoft site – tried every version of floppy disk driver, the actual file name, etc. I could think of – nothing.

So, I expanded the file from the original Windows XP-SP2 CD and did as you suggest. Interestingly as soon as I renamed the existing file Windows created another one before I had time to copy the new file across – sometimes Windows is too clever for us! But I copied the expanded version over the new file any way then rebootted. No change.

This is getting silly – I am seriously thinking of just buying a USB floppy drive and giving up on the one in the case – but it rankles to give up!

Thank you anyway.

Noel

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See if The floppy disk drive is missing from the My Computer folder helps.

Joe

--Joe

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Thanks Joe, it is interesting that my searches of the Microsoft Support files did not pick that one up! Anyway the symptoms it lists are exactly what is the case in my computer, so I followed the directions, only problem being that it recommends deleting registry entries in a registry key (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMControlSet002 …) that does not exist in my computer. The result of that was that my DVD drive disappeared as well and the floppy did not come back! Fortunately the article you referred me to also included a link to another article on what to do if the CD or DVD drive disappears – I followed that and got my DVD drive back.

So after lots of mucking about I am back where I started – oh well – this has been a great learning experience.

Despite all that I do appreciate your help.

Best wishes

Noel

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Did you also check the key referenced in Floppy Disk Drive Does Not Appear in the My Computer Folder? It is not the same error but can’t hurt to check the registry.

Joe

--Joe

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Thanks again Joe, I did look at it but because it referred to upgrade to Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition I did not go any further. Incidentally the Device Manager report is not that listed but “Windows successfully loaded the device driver for this hardware but cannot find the hardware device. (Code 41)”
I have now followed the instructions. First there is no SmartDisk FlashPath Monitor installed in my computer. So I looked in the registry as recommended. The path to flpydisk.sys is already there as it should be. I did try to change the path to the full path C:windows … etc but it would not allow me to do that – just changed the value to blank, so I reinserted the path as recommended in the KB.

Still no success.

Best wishes, Noel

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Sorry, I’m at a loss. Perhaps someone else has a idea.

Joe

--Joe

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Thanks Joe.

Looks like I have found another of Windows mysteries! Perhaps I should just give up!

Noel

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Noel,
While you don’t specifically mention it, I assume you have checked for the presence of the files, flpydisk.sys and fdc.sys in your WindowsSystem32Drivers folder?

Also checked that they were enabled in Device Manager, floppy disk controllers and floppy disk drives ?

Just a thought but sometimes they can be skipped over easily enough.

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Thank you for asking Bob.

I had checked for the presence of flpydisk.sys but I did not know about fdc.sys – just checked – it is there.

Yes I had checked the Device Manager for both the floppy disk controller and floppy disk drive – they are there – and it is the floppy disk drive that has the yellow circle with an exclamation mark inside.

But thank you – yes these things are easily overlooked – particularly when one is getting desparate!

Noel

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That’s the same device driver as I have for my floppy disk.

I wonder if there could be some kind of conflict, when you look at the floppy disk in Device Manager does it show an error message as well as that yellow

StuartR

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Yes, it seems that the device driver is OK, so that is not the problem. Incidentally it occurred to me to check whether the driver is actually located in the System32drivers folder as it should – yes it is.

No there is no conflict indicated in Device Manager – just the message in the Properties window “Windows successfully loaded the device driver for this hardware but cannot find the hardware device. (Code 41)” So looks like somewhere inside Windows something is not connecting, now that we know the floppy drive is communicating with the mother board and the computer can boot from it. Is this just another Windows mystery?

All the best

Noel

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