Win7 won't write to floppy drive - XP will

[Lord Vetinari]

I haven't yet had a board that didn't have a floppy controller - I'm sure
they are there, but all of mine have them. Booting from a USB stick is not
as realiable as booting from a floppy - ie. booting from a floppy always
works. I have one board that won't boot from a USB stick if IDE0 is
connected. I have another that only works if the USB stick is in a certain
port. It's kinda like plug and pray...um...plug and play - it mostly works
but is still quirky.

I'm getting the idea that this is not a common problem - lucky me! I just
boot to XP to do the floppy writes I needed - I just needed to make some
partition magic boot disks. Boot to XP, run the PM floppy disk maker,
reboot back to Win7, end of story. Six months from now I'll try to write
something to a floppy disk and then remember, oh yeah, can't do that from
Win7...<gg>...

Me, I just boot into Ubuntu, if I need to mess with partitions. Win7
doesn't do much with the Linux partitions....

 

[Lord Vetinari]

Sort of "are we having fun yet?".

Oh dear. You've just called him a pinhead. Hehheh. You _do_ know where
that phrase comes from, don't you?

 

[johnbee]

In Windows 7, there is a uniquely new feature, well it is to me anyway.

The administrator can hide drives so that the silly users do not write to
them. I think the users have to be in a group because it is one of the
options in group policy.

So it might be a good idea to check that this feature has not
inadvertently/deliberately been set. Ahem. For those who want the full
explanation about what to do if that feature has been set, then try to unset
it unset it.

 

[Philo F. Shagnasty]

Oh dear. You've just called him a pinhead. Hehheh. You _do_ know where
that phrase comes from, don't you?

Yea. Idiots who use Ubuntu are pinheads.

Look it up.

 

[Canuck57]

I'm building a spare box and it had neither floppy nor CD. But for some
reason, it won't boot from a USB stick if the HD is connected no matter how
I set the bios. Pull the IDE cable, it boots from the USB stick quite
nicely - which doesn't do me any good because I need the drive there after
I boot. So I had to stick a floppy drive in it. I've got 4 or 5 of them
sitting on a shelf in my office, but unfortunately we haven't yet reached
the point where we can get rid of them for good

I looked at device manager, and it was happy as can be. There is nothing in
any of the event logs. This is actually the first time I tried to use the
floppy drive with Win7, it's not something I do often. Once I'm done
setting a system up, I seldom use the floppy. It also reads just fine, it
just won't write without corrupting the disk.

Probably some old DOS 2.x format.

Reformat the disks.

But in todays day and age, why would you want to write data to a floppy
for is beyond me. Use a USB or CD or DVD...

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Oh dear. You've just called him a pinhead. Hehheh. You _do_ know where
that phrase comes from, don't you?

Hmm. I guess I was late to the Zippy train. I had no idea that it
started with him.

The Wikipedia article was informative - thanks for the cue

I read Zippy on line, but I don't recall quite when I started. Maybe 12
years ago - or 6, or 18. Take your pick

 

[Zootal]

Probably some old DOS 2.x format.

Reformat the disks.

But in todays day and age, why would you want to write data to a
floppy for is beyond me. Use a USB or CD or DVD...

It's not the disks. They work if I boot to XP on the same box.

The particular computer I'm working with won't boot from a USB stick when
ide0 is connected, and doesn't have a cd/dvd drive, which is why I needed
the floppy to boot from. As I mentioned in another post - a computer will
always boot from a floppy, whereas booting from a usb stick isn't always
reliable. That is why I still put floppy drives in my computers. I only
need them once every couple of months, but they still serve a purpose, and
with the exception of the current win7 problem, they always work

I solved the USB booting problem by using the plop boot loader. Boot to
plop and then choose what you want to boot, including USB sticks. Now I can
boot from my USB stick, no matter how the BIOS is set.

 

[Lord Vetinari]

Hmm. I guess I was late to the Zippy train. I had no idea that it started
with him.

The Wikipedia article was informative - thanks for the cue

I read Zippy on line, but I don't recall quite when I started. Maybe 12
years ago - or 6, or 18. Take your pick

I've a nice file for making "Zippy for President" buttons...and a
button-maker, too. Heh. Want one?

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

I've a nice file for making "Zippy for President" buttons...and a
button-maker, too. Heh. Want one?

Oy, weh!

 

[Van Chocstraw]

Here is a bit of an off the wall problem. When running Win7, I can neither
format nor write to a disk in the floppy drive. Boot to XP, and it works
fine. Are there known issues with Windoes 7 writing to floppy drives?

Get a thumb drive. Floppies are a waste, slow and unreliable.