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Floppy diskette read as "not formatted"
"RD" wrote in message
... I was using a floppy diskette to transfer a couple small files between my old PC and a new 8300. Installing the file onto the new PC went well; it read the floppy contents OK and accessed the file to copy. When I got ready to transfer another file from the new computer back to the old using the same diskette, when I accessed it in Windows Explorer I got an error message on the new computer (Win XP Home) that said "the diskette in A: is not fomatted.". So I took it out and tried it in the old PC, and it showed up fine in Windows Explorer and I could read the contents. I put it back in the new PC and it still said "not formatted". It couldn't even read the file it had transferred previously. So I grabbed another diskette and tried it, and the new PC read its contents fine. Any idea why one PC reads a diskette OK but the new one reads it as "not formatted" (altho the first time it read it fine) ? Thanks. Rob Some pre-formatted diskettes are not formatted with a proper "media descriptor byte". This does not matter in win9x, because win9x does not check this byte. It does matter in nt4/win2k/winxp. Such diskettes are seen as unformatted. The solution is to format the diskettes in a nt4/win2k/winxp PC, which will automatically write the byte correctly. Of course, any data on the diskettes will be destroyed by the format. So you could first copy the data to a win9x PC, then format the diskette. Please let us know what happens. :-) Jay |
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"RD" wrote in message ... Some pre-formatted diskettes are not formatted with a proper "media descriptor byte". This does not matter in win9x, because win9x does not check this byte. It does matter in nt4/win2k/winxp. Such diskettes are seen as unformatted. The solution is to format the diskettes in a nt4/win2k/winxp PC That sure sounds like it may have been the problem. Unfortunately, I destroyed and tossed that diskette when I got the error, so I can't test it. But from now on I'll use diskettes formatted in the XP machine. However, some of my old pre-formatted diskettes are read correctly on the XP machine, so who knows.... Thanks for the advice; I would bet that is the cause. Rob Here is more info about the MDB: http://is-it-true.org/nt/utips/utips126.shtml http://www.jsiinc.com/SUBD/tip1800/rh1861.htm |
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