Question Problem with 1.44MB floppy disk drive ?

[avz3]

First, let me give some background. I have quite an old software on 3 x 1.44 floppy diskettes that I want to copy to a cd rom or a flash drive. I've managed to find an old pc with an Asus P5GZ-MX motherboard.
I've connected to it a 1.44MB floppy drive with it's flat cable and I keep on getting this error:
"A disk read error occurred Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart".

I have 3 disk drives and 3 cables, I've replaced and installed each one of them with the same result.
Finally, I've disconnected the drive and disabled the 1.44 floppy drive option in the BIOS but surprisingly, the error message is still on. would like to ask for your opinion if there is a cure to it.

 

[BFG-9000]

The message is telling you that you have no bootable OS on any drive installed. You can either boot to DOS on a floppy, or install Windows to a HDD before trying to use the floppy drive.

While it's possible to load ATAPI and USB drivers for DOS if you know what you are doing, most people nowadays are probably better off doing the latter as they will be more familiar with a GUI.

 

[TerryLaze]

Also you can get external floppy drives that connect with usb to modern PCs and read the floppies that way.

 

[BFG-9000]

You could also live-boot a Linux distro from USB drive as it will support floppies too.

Not very many distros still support 32-bit though, and the board may not expose the Pentium 4's PAE flag so you may have to -forcepae if you use a i686 build. Apparently though AntiX and the related MX Linux do still have i486 versions and are lightweight enough to run OK on such an old PC.

 

[TerryLaze]

You could also live-boot a Linux distro from USB drive as it will support floppies too.

Not very many distros still support 32-bit though, and the board may not expose the Pentium 4's PAE flag so you may have to -forcepae if you use a i686 build. Apparently though AntiX and the related MX Linux do still have i486 versions and are lightweight enough to run OK on such an old PC.

The FreeDOS Project

www.freedos.org

 

[avz3]

The message is telling you that you have no bootable OS on any drive installed. You can either boot to DOS on a floppy, or install Windows to a HDD before trying to use the floppy drive.

While it's possible to load ATAPI and USB drivers for DOS if you know what you are doing, most people nowadays are probably better off doing the latter as they will be more familiar with a GUI.

 

[avz3]

Silly me, that was exactly the case. I forgot to connect an hdd. now the floppy drive is recognized but they seemed to be all faulty (they are from the junk and they are more then 25 y.o.) I've tried them with old 1.44 diskettes (not the ones with the software that I want to copy) inserting most of them produces a message that it has to be formatted, so I'm not risking to put in the sw diskettes. I'll try to find/buy a good conditioned drive.

 

[fzabkar]

I've tried them with old 1.44 diskettes (not the ones with the software that I want to copy) inserting most of them produces a message that it has to be formatted, ...

Maybe the diskettes are blank and have never been formatted?

 

[American2021]

Maybe the diskettes are blank and have never been formatted?

That's easy to check with the Windows disk management tool. In Disk Management, you can see the partition status of each disk.

 

[fzabkar]

That's easy to check with the Windows disk management tool. In Disk Management, you can see the partition status of each disk.

I don't think DM can tell the difference between an unformatted diskette and an inaccessible one. That's because floppies need to be low-level formatted whereas other storage media don't.

 

[American2021]

Grok says that:

1. Unformatted Floppy Disk: When a floppy disk is unformatted, the disk management tool will usually indicate that the disk is present but not formatted. It may show the disk as having no file system and prompt the user to format it before use. The disk is recognized by the system, but it lacks a file system structure.

2. Inaccessible Floppy Disk: An inaccessible floppy disk may be due to various reasons, such as physical damage, corruption, or hardware issues. In this case, the disk management tool might show the disk as "unreadable," "not initialized," or it may not show the disk at all. The system may not be able to read the disk's structure, indicating that it cannot access the data on it.

And also:

When a floppy drive is connected, via USB or legacy hardware, in Windows (including 10 and 11), and a floppy disk is inserted; the OS assigns it a drive letter and mounts it as a volume. Unlike hard drives, floppy disks are single-volume media without partitions, but they are still treated as volumes with a file system, such as FAT.

In Disk Management, the interface includes two main views:

1. Disk List (bottom graphical view): Shows physical disks (e.g., Disk 0, Disk 1) and their volumes.
2. Volume List (top view): Lists all mounted volumes, including their drive letters, file systems, capacities, and free space.

When a floppy disk is inserted, it is recognized as a removable volume. In the Disk Management volume list, you would see an entry for drive A: if a disk is present and readable.

The presence of data on a floppy disk can be inferred from the free space value:

1. If Free Space Equals Capacity: The disk is formatted but empty, meaning no user data is present (though minimal file system overhead might exist, it’s negligible for FAT on floppies).

OR,

2. If Free Space Is Less Than Capacity: Space is occupied by files, indicating that data is present.

For example a formatted 1.44 MB floppy disk might show 1.44 MB of free space, indicating no data. However, if files are stored on it, the free space might drop to, say, 1.00 MB, suggesting 0.44 MB of data is on the floppy disk.

That's how you tell if data is on the floppy disk, by looking if the free space equals the capacity or not using Disk Management in Windows. Windows Disk Management can tell if a floppy drive has data on it by displaying the free space of the mounted floppy disk volume.

Note: 1.44MB floppy disk came out in 1986 by IBM.