Main Site Nav
Topics Topics Edit Profile Profile Help/Instructions Help    
Search Last 1|3|7 Days Search Search Tree View Tree View  

3.5 drive reading as 5 1/4.. why?

Trish's Escape from Hardware Hell Help Board » Hardware » Hard Drive and Storage Related » 3.5 drive reading as 5 1/4.. why? « Previous Next »

Author Message
Mike Clark
Posted on Monday, November 20, 2000 - 8:19 pm:   

in the bios settings at bootup it reads as a 3.5, but when i try to read or use the drive it reads as a 5 1/4 and says its not formatted and all. if it helps i have a fujitsu lifebook with a plug-in floppy drive. thanx!
Trish
Posted on Tuesday, November 21, 2000 - 7:27 pm:   

Well, I really can't help much, but thought I'd add a little. My Dell Inspiron with NO floppy has always said 3.5 at bootup, shows 5 1/4 in Windows and if I try to click on the icon, I get a disk not formatted message. I quit noticing after awhile, since it didn't seem to have any negative effect. Maybe the floppy drive is bad. Just a thought.
Mike
Posted on Thursday, November 23, 2000 - 11:03 am:   

u said u quit noticing, so were u still able to use it? what u are descibing is exactly what mine is doing. thanks a lot.
Trish
Posted on Thursday, November 23, 2000 - 12:42 pm:   

I didn't have a floppy drive at all.
dannyalbers
Posted on Saturday, November 25, 2000 - 2:32 pm:   

Pop in a boot disk, boot from it.

If it boots to dos, and you can read and write and format floppies in dos, then its simply a confusion on the part of Windows, and you can spend either a tonne of time troubleshooting it yourself, or paying someone a few bucks to sort it out.

But if in DOS, it shows, acts and reads like a 3.5 drive, its not a hardware issue.

Get back to me here with any questions, or results of trying this.
Mike
Posted on Saturday, November 25, 2000 - 9:27 pm:   

thanks danny and trish, but it was just a simple overlook on my part. i went to system>device manager>and clicked on view devices by connection. when i clicked on the floppy drive controller, it gave me a set of options that did not come up on view devices by type, including a check box for removable disk (which happened to be checked.) when i unchecked it, i guess it allowed windows to find and read it as a normal 3.5 floppy instead of a 5 1/4. thanks for your help guys.

Add Your Message Here
Post:
Username: Posting Information:
This is a public posting area. Enter your username and password if you have an account. Otherwise, enter your full name as your username and leave the password blank. Your e-mail address is optional.
Password:
E-mail:
Options: Enable HTML code in message
Automatically activate URLs in message
Action:

Administration Administration Log Out Log Out   Previous Page Previous Page Next Page Next Page