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From: Nicholas Dreyer on 9 Apr 2010 23:48
Floppy drive attached to motherboard:
After replacing a blown power supply, everything else on the motherboard
seems back to normal, but software (e.g. file browsers, etc.) recognize
the drive, but think fully formatted disks are unformatted, and are
unable to format because they can't recognize disk geometry.

I swapped in a new drive, and get the same problem.

Could this be a symptom of blown motherboard circuitry? As I said, BIOS
and file browsers see the drive. Also, you hear the drive beeing
accessed during the boot-up sequence looking for a bootable disk.

Anything else I could be checking?

Thanks, Nick
From: Grinder on 9 Apr 2010 23:50
On 4/9/2010 10:48 PM, Nicholas Dreyer wrote:
> Floppy drive attached to motherboard:
> After replacing a blown power supply, everything else on the motherboard
> seems back to normal, but software (e.g. file browsers, etc.) recognize
> the drive, but think fully formatted disks are unformatted, and are
> unable to format because they can't recognize disk geometry.
>
> I swapped in a new drive, and get the same problem.
>
> Could this be a symptom of blown motherboard circuitry? As I said, BIOS
> and file browsers see the drive. Also, you hear the drive beeing
> accessed during the boot-up sequence looking for a bootable disk.
>
> Anything else I could be checking?

Some BIOSes don't really do much of a check on the existance of the
drive. Do you hear the drive make a quick read on startup?

Also, Windows Explorer generally has an A: drive whether or not there's
really hardware behind it. I can attest that's the reality on this machine.
From: philo on 10 Apr 2010 00:08
Nicholas Dreyer wrote:
> Floppy drive attached to motherboard:
> After replacing a blown power supply, everything else on the motherboard
> seems back to normal, but software (e.g. file browsers, etc.) recognize
> the drive, but think fully formatted disks are unformatted, and are
> unable to format because they can't recognize disk geometry.
>
> I swapped in a new drive, and get the same problem.
>
> Could this be a symptom of blown motherboard circuitry? As I said, BIOS
> and file browsers see the drive. Also, you hear the drive beeing
> accessed during the boot-up sequence looking for a bootable disk.
>
> Anything else I could be checking?
>
> Thanks, Nick


Double check to make sure the bios is set to 1.44 meg drive
(which is what I assume it to be)
From: Nicholas Dreyer on 11 Apr 2010 22:21
On Fri, 09 Apr 2010 22:50:25 -0500, Grinder wrote:
>
> Some BIOSes don't really do much of a check on the existance of the
> drive. Do you hear the drive make a quick read on startup?

Yes, as I said in the original post:

"Also, you hear the drive beeing accessed during the boot-up sequence
looking for a bootable disk."

That same brief noise is apparent when you try to format, but then after
a lengthy pause with no sound, the system comes back with a message that
it cannot recognize the geometry of the disk.

Does this mean, the only way to access a floppy drive with this
motherboard now is using a controller card?
From: Grinder on 12 Apr 2010 03:03
On 4/11/2010 9:21 PM, Nicholas Dreyer wrote:
> On Fri, 09 Apr 2010 22:50:25 -0500, Grinder wrote:
>>
>> Some BIOSes don't really do much of a check on the existance of the
>> drive. Do you hear the drive make a quick read on startup?
>
> Yes, as I said in the original post:
>
> "Also, you hear the drive beeing accessed during the boot-up sequence
> looking for a bootable disk."
>
> That same brief noise is apparent when you try to format, but then after
> a lengthy pause with no sound, the system comes back with a message that
> it cannot recognize the geometry of the disk.
>
> Does this mean, the only way to access a floppy drive with this
> motherboard now is using a controller card?

I'm still not convinced the drive is good. Have you seen it work in a
difference PC, or had a different drive work in *this* PC?
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