Floppy Drive Problem in DOS system

tophurler

Hey folks,

Friend of mine is having a problem with their computer system. Basically they run a business and they use a DOS system to keep records of customers info. Now they also use floppy disks to make a back up of these records. The problem is the floppy drive wont detect the disks/cannot create backups anymore, this has only started lately and was working perfectly for them.

Would anyone know what I could try to fix this problem for him???

Cheers
TH

Chalk

check the wires first, afaik there isnt much to fix when it coms to fdd's
there only about a tenner to replace anyway.

the best thing you could do for him would be to get him to update his backup systems

floppies can barely hold a word document are extremely slow and are also susceptible to all sorts of interference, magentic or otherwise.

maybe recommend he get a decent usb key and a program to synchronise that with his pc whenever he plugs it in?


//edit
mised the dos part..
suppose just replace the drive
still, save them to a file and access them from windows to do the usb thing?

Blub2k4

A new floppy drive generally.
The test for hardware is if it works in Dos when no extraaneous (sp?) drivers are loaded, if it works in dos then it works, if not then generally hardware is borked.

tophurler

Thanks for getting back to me so soon Chalk + Blub,

I cant get him to do the USB key, cos he doesnt have windows installed on the computer, its purely DOS as he has it in the shop at the counter.

Now I dont have much experience with a DOS system (Damn Windows!!!), is there a test that can be run on the floppy drive to see if its working??? He'll probably end up getting a new one but hes asked me to try fix it at the moment.

TH

Chalk

fair enough

what kind of response does he get from the floppy?
does it spin, do the access lights come on?
is it recognised in the bios?

if it powers up , tries to access it etc it may have lost its ability to read/write
if the bios doesnt show it, then its probably dead / wiring problem

try it in another pc and see what happens, that will at least narrow it down to your mates pc or his floppy as the problem.

tophurler

Thanks Chalk,

I'm not much of a guru when it comes to taking PCs apart, so if I try his floppy in my PC for instance, will I need drivers for it to work??

Sorry for the questions, they must sound really simple.

Capt'n Midnight

First, have the disks been formatted on the drive itself ? - sometimes drives go out of alignment and won't read properly aligned disks.

At the DOS prompt try
dir a:
then try
ctrl-C
then
Dir a:
if you see the directory the second time then the change sensor is gone
drives are about €10-15 unless it is VERY old.

Test on the drive - press F8 when it says starting MS-DOS (dos 6 or higher) and choose safe mode to bypass drivers -esp if ran a memory manager like QEMM recently..
on a brand new disk FORMAT A: /S (say N to quick format)
this disk should be able to boot the pc to C:> prompt
means the drive will read+write to itself not necessiarly to other drives.

this would indicate the

Add the line
verify on
to the autoexec.bat to have the fdd do a quick check when it writes files in future (it's not a full check but better than nothing)

if it's a Dell or other branded PC there may be a diags util on their download page, someone may know a link to a generic test app for floppies !

Blub2k4

The drive will be screwed, assume that no one has taken the case off then the wiring is fine, this is an office pc it is a safe assumption.
You have already done the test, the drive is not accessible in DOS, this is a definitive test for faulty hardware, I supported disk drives for a few years, at the beginning of my career and this is what we always did.
Buy a new drive they cost about 20 euros at the moment.