15+ year old computer with XP Home 32 Bit can't detect 3 1/4 floppy, but BIOS does.

[Darkmatterx]

So your wondering why I'm fussing around with such a machine? I'm trying to reinstall XP for someone who just checks email and does a bit of web surfing and doesn't want to buy a new system. Their system doesn't meet the min req to update the OS so we're stuck with XP. His XP has major problems that I won't go into but it needs to be reinstalled. Unfortunately Windows doesn't see his floppy drive nor does his install disk. This is a problem because some time around 2009-2011 he installed one of Intel's first SSD's, which Windows XP can't detect without installing the drivers. I can't update the motherboards BIOS without a floppy drive either. I tried making a custom disk using Nlite but his machine wouldn't have anything to do with it. The floppy drive is in his device manager and it says its working fine. I think his floppy drive is dead so I brought over my own and a cable which I test first and so I know mine does work but for some reason XP can't see it.

Here is my current plan. When I opened up his system to use my floppy drive I found a HDD that was not connected to the motherboard. This was probably the original drive that came with the system. Why it wasn't reconnected as a 2nd drive when the SSD was installed I will never know. This HDD is still functional so my plan is to format it and install XP onto the HDD and update it to SP 3 and install the drivers needed for the SSD. Once that is done I can use Intel's Data Migration Tool to copy everything over to the SSD. I think this is how XP ended up on the SSD in the first place.

While I'm pretty confident this plan will work I would still like to figure out why XP can't see a simple floppy drive when the BIOS can.

Thanks

 

[Dragos Manea]

Usually XP with ssd needs ahci drivers, you can add them manually to the install disk or you can download an already compiled pack of windows XP which contains all drivers needed for a modern machine including ahci and sata drivers. ("Last XP" is such a pack). Then you only need to burn the image to a CD/DVD and everything should be ok.

 

[herrwizo]

You could also consider installing Linux (Ubuntu or Mint, for example). Depending on the exact system specs, mostly the amount of memory, you could even get the latest distribution to work, which should be leaps and bounds above XP in terms of stability, security and support for SSDs. Especially if that rig will only be used for e-mails and web surfing.

 

[Darkmatterx]

This guy is older and doesn't know much about computers in general, including XP. Changing OS's would probably kill him. lol Appreciate the suggestion though.
Dragos: Thanks for the suggestion. I did make my own custom pack with Nlite but the first one didn't work. Said the hal.dll file was corrupt so I'm trying again. I'll also make a disk of what you suggested. I've been at this guys place so many times over this it's stupid. All I needed was a working floppy drive! 🙁

 

[Darkmatterx]

Plan=fail. Intels SSD data migration software crashes before it even starts to clone the drive. Yippie. Although, the fresh install of XP on the old HDD now does see their floppy drive and their SSD, but only IN Windows. In the Setup it doesn't. I now know the SSD uses a SATA connection via an add-on card. Now I've found the software for the add-on card and am currently trying to find a 1.44 floppy disk that is still able to hold files. The 1 oddity is that even now that XP can see the floppy drive, when I enter XP Setup and it asks me if I need to hit F6 to install 3rd party software nothing happens. I've tried it with the F Lock key on, and off, Setup just seems to ignore me. If I can't install this software they'll be stuck with XP on the HDD until they decide to get a new computer. I tried installing the drivers via Nlite but it didn't help. I'm wondering if its their CD of XP. It's a burned "back-up" CD although they do have a legit, paid for CD key. And there's no one to complain too, the guy who made this "back-up" CD and built the computer has been out of business for years. Their XP appears to not be an OEM version so I was wondering, could I try my copy of XP and see if F6 works? It's a retail copy but it is an "upgrade" CD. Is there any actual difference in the software on the upgrade CD or does it just mean that it will accept "upgrade" CD Keys? Will it accept their CD Key which is for a full version of XP?

Thanks (running out of options)

 

[lordmogul]

Does any other system detect the drive?
Try putting it into another computer to see if it works there. Maybe run a live CD of another OS.

Or try to download a "clean" image of a Windows CD. For newer OSes Microsoft even delivers the files themselves, so no worries anything illegal there. Depending on how old your CD is, it might need later updates, especially some of the Service Packs. Using a recent image would also speed up the initial setup as less updates have to be downloaded after install.

There is also the possibility to "patch" Service Packs, updates and drivers into the image of the CD, called "slipstreaming", although it is a bit complicated.

I also assume the current installation on the SSD is running fine? Why not crate a backup of the system onto the hard drive in case something gows wrong. I'ts not that we totalle need to use Floppies anymore.

Are there no SATA connections directly on the board? Has to be quite old hardware then.
Remember, XP is out of support since 2014, so no security updates since then. There is a way to keep recieving updates until 2019, but that is unofficial, chec "POSready 2009"

 

[Darkmatterx]

Thanks Lord I've read about the reg hack for support. The board has no SATA ports. I think it came out right when XP did, which is 2001. I now know their floppy drive works but is useless because the port on the MB is malfunctioning badly enough that it can't see any disk you put into it. In fact, the only reason XP shows it in My Computer could be due to the BIOS settings. The SSD and original XP that was on it was NOT working well. You could open a program and go take a quick shower and be back before it finished loading. That's the whole reason I needed to do a clean install. Anyways I figured it all out. Mostly. I installed XP on the HDD but cloning it even with 3rd party software suggested to me by intel caused XP to have a meltdown. I thought maybe their burned disk was bad but on what was going to be my last attempt I wanted everything as perfect as I could make them.

I did a chkdsk on the HDD and then a defrag with Defraggler, and then another chkdsk. I then did something that more or less cracked the case. I ran a SFC /scannow and the CD Drive would often say it couldn't read the file and ask me to retry. I took one of my own drives over that I knew worked and never got that poppup again so I now know the OS errors was from their old drive copying OS file over to the HDD in an unstable state.
Also, from my own experience, Samsung has told me that small errors will get bigger when you clone them over to a SSD. So I now had a stable XP SP3 ready for cloning but I still wasn't taking any chances so I made a backup image of the HDD before I cloned it over to the SSD. In the end the cloning went well this time and there were no issues UNTIL..... I took it back to their place. I couldn't get the internet to work. First tech support guy could only read from a script and told me to tell them they HAVE to buy a new computer. Second guy was much more knowledgeable but still couldn't figure out what the problem was.

In the end I spotted rather odd problem. Their ISP, which sends all the needed IP data, subnet mask, dns server, and default gateway somehow managed to send an incorrect default gateway address. Their IP was 192.168.X.XX, but their default gateway was showing up as 192.168.Y.1. They somehow managed to get the default gateway number wrong by 1 point. It was getting late and they wanted me out so I just manually told Firefox and Windows to use my own manually entered numbers and instantly I could connect to google. I go back tomorrow and call the ISP and ask then what they're doing and why didn't 2 separate tech support guys pick up on this?