Floppy drive failure – Symptoms and Troubleshooting

These are some symptoms that may be caused by the floppy drive

Symptom

Remedy

	•	Check that the power connector is properly and securely
Indicator light never		connected.
goes on	•	Check that the interface cable to properly and securely
		connected to both the drive and the motherboard.

Indicator light never	•	The interface cable may be reversed. Check the
goes off		connection to the drive and to the motherboard.

Drive type mismatch	•	Check for proper configuration in CMOS.
during boot	•	The floppy drive may need to be replaced.

	•	The floppy disk may be defective.
"Invalid media" or
	•	The drive may not be properly configured in CMOS.
"Track 00 bad" error
	•	You may be using the wrong floppy disk density for your
when formatting
		drive.

	•	Refresh the view.
The same directory is	•	Reinsert the disk, making sure it goes in all the way.
displayed for different	•	Check that the interface cable to properly and securely
diskettes		connected to both the drive and the motherboard.
	•	The floppy drive may need to be replaced.

	•	There is no disk in the floppy drive.
"Drive not ready" error	•	Reinsert the disk, making sure it goes in all the way.
	•	The floppy drive may need to be replaced.

	•	The disk in the drive is not formatted.
	•	You may be using the wrong floppy disk density for your
"General failure" error
		drive.
	•	The drive is out of alignment.

"Sector not found" error

•

The drive is out of alignment.

Using scandisk utility for a Floppy disk

To use scandisk:

1.  Insert disk to be scanned into the drive (A). 
2. Click on "My Computer."
3. Use the *rightmost* mouse button to click on "A drive," (if disk is a floppy, otherwise choose the drive as appropriate). 
4.  (Left) click on "Properties." 
5. Click on the "Tools" tab. 
6. Click the error checking button "check now."
   Select both the "Automatically fix file system errors" and "Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors" boxes. 
7. Click "Start." 

Scandisk will check the floppy or other disk for errors, and fix them if possible.

Replacing a Floppy Disk Drive

Procedure Steps: 

1. Remove the side cover of the PC and  remove the screws holding the drive in the bay
2.  Disconnect the power supply connector. 
3. Disconnect the ribbon cable as shown in the figure. 
4. Remove the defective drive from the bay. 
5. Replace the new drive on to the bay slot as shown in figure,
6. Reconnect the Power supply cable and the ribbon cable to the floppy drive unit as shown ib figure. 
7. Secure the screws in the drive bay as shown in figure. 

Reformatting a Floppy Disk

How to Format a Floppy

1. On the desktop, double-click on My Computer. 
2.  Click once on the floppy drive to select it.
3. Once selected, right-click the floppy to access the right-click menu and select Format... 
4. The format dialog box (as shown in the figure on the right) will appear. Leavesettings at default and click the Start button.
5.  A warning dialog box (as shown in the figure below) will appear. Click OK to format the disk and erase all data on disk or Click Cancel if you don't want to format the disk.
6. The bar at the bottom of the dialog box shows the progress of the formatting. Figure on the right shows the bar indicating the progress of formatting.
7. Once completed a dialog box will appear saying Format Complete. Click OK.