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Windows XP can't read 360K floppies?

M

MattCarp

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Sep 5, 2003
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Atlanta, Georgia (USA)
[I'm note sure which forum is most appropriate]

I plopped a 5.25" 360K floppy into my Pentium III desktop (Intel 440BX chipset, AOpen AX6BC) to begin archiving a bunch of old disks. The drive is an IBM type 1355 (YD-580), which came out of either an AT or a late model XT.

In WinXP I'm getting the dreaded "A:\ is not accessible. The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error."

Can anyone confirm these errors? More importantly, has anyone overcome them?

I have the 5.25" floppy connected to the first connector on the drive cable and a 1.4M 3.5" floppy connected to the second connector on the drive cable (after the twist). The 5.25" drive does not have a termination pack installed and is set to DS1. The 3.5" drive does not have any jumpers.

My BIOS is set to identify drive A as a 5.25" 360K floppy and drive B as a 3.5" 1.44M floppy.

I'm booting a fresh install of Windows XP SP2. In theory, WinXP supports 360K drives (there's a Microsoft KB article that says so!).

I am able to read the 3.5" floppy drive in Windows, no problem.

I am able to boot the 5.25" drive into DOS. Yea!

However, I've had this problem before and I don't think I've ever solved it. Has anyone had any luck with similar equipment?

I tried masking the drive ready signal with plastic table (pin 34), but this didn't fix it. I've also tried fooling windows by declaring the drive to be a different type (like a 1.2M drive).

I really, really, really don't want to put Win98 on this machine!

-Matt
 
MattCarp said:
[I'm note sure which forum is most appropriate]

I plopped a 5.25" 360K floppy into my Pentium III desktop (Intel 440BX chipset, AOpen AX6BC) to begin archiving a bunch of old disks. The drive is an IBM type 1355 (YD-580), which came out of either an AT or a late model XT.

In WinXP I'm getting the dreaded "A:\ is not accessible. The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error."

Can anyone confirm these errors? More importantly, has anyone overcome them?

I have the 5.25" floppy connected to the first connector on the drive cable and a 1.4M 3.5" floppy connected to the second connector on the drive cable (after the twist). The 5.25" drive does not have a termination pack installed and is set to DS1. The 3.5" drive does not have any jumpers.

My BIOS is set to identify drive A as a 5.25" 360K floppy and drive B as a 3.5" 1.44M floppy.

I'm booting a fresh install of Windows XP SP2. In theory, WinXP supports 360K drives (there's a Microsoft KB article that says so!).

I am able to read the 3.5" floppy drive in Windows, no problem.

I am able to boot the 5.25" drive into DOS. Yea!

However, I've had this problem before and I don't think I've ever solved it. Has anyone had any luck with similar equipment?

I tried masking the drive ready signal with plastic table (pin 34), but this didn't fix it. I've also tried fooling windows by declaring the drive to be a different type (like a 1.2M drive).

I really, really, really don't want to put Win98 on this machine!

-Matt
Click to expand...


A month or so ago I also hooked up a 5.25 (full height) 360k drive to my main xp machine, worked fine, only thing I couldnt get it to do was format the disk
 
one more data point

one more data point

I booted Ubuntu 7.04 from CD and it was able to read the floppy without any problems!

Even though this seems to be a Win XP problem, there must be something a little unique about my machine because I don't see much chatter on the net about this.

I think I might try resetting my BIOS settings to factory defaults.

-Matt
 
unfortunately, XP has little to no support for 360 KB floppies. what i've found you'll have to do is get a program like winimage and create an image file from the disk.

of course, after you do this you can extract files from the image on to your hard drive. you can also add new/modified files back into the image and re-write it onto the 360 KB disk.

you just cant access it through explorer. yes, it's a P.I.T.A. but it works.
 
A 1.2MB drive works though. Although I had to attach the 5.25" as A: and 3.5" as B: on the cable. Just swap them in the BIOS.

I've never really had a problem reading/writing from a 360kB floppy after being written in a 1.2MB one. I just make sure to format the disks in the 360kB drive :)
 
I really cheat with XP. I find a diskette that is formatted how I want, 360 or 720. Then, I right-click on the A: drive and pick "disk copy". When I'm done I just have to delete the files off of the copy and voila, a formatted disk in the correct format. I just tried it with a 360 3.5 diskette. Works great.
 
A:\ is not accessible .. I/O device error

A:\ is not accessible .. I/O device error

In WinXP I'm getting the dreaded "A:\ is not accessible. The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error."
Can anyone confirm these errors? More importantly, has anyone overcome them?
Click to expand...

I see the same. Boots okay from 360K drive and can run programs from drive, but trying to access the drive after firing up XP gives the same error message you see.

And I get an I/O related error message when I try to format the disk from a CMD prompt:

c:\>
c:\>format a: /t:40 /n:9
Insert new disk for drive A:
and press ENTER when ready...
The type of the file system is FAT.
Verifying 360K
Error in IOCTL call.

c:\>
 
I discovered this annoyance some time back.

My solution, build up an older 486 and load it with Win98. Haven't had a problem since. Plus, 98 lets you reboot to DOS mode so I can use Teledisk for disk imaging.

Guess I could have just built up an 8088 and just keep DOS on it, but this way I can also network it and dump disk images to and from my main machine.

Curtis
 
You have to change the BIOS and tell it it's a 5.25" 360K. Also, Windows XP doesn't come with drivers for formatting 5.25" disks; Microsoft says you have to use "3rd party drivers," although I've yet to find any.
 
You have to change the BIOS and tell it it's a 5.25" 360K
Click to expand...
Matt did that (see Matt's, "My BIOS is set to identify drive A as a 5.25" 360K floppy"). So did I.

Also, Windows XP doesn't come with drivers for formatting 5.25" disks; Microsoft says you have to use "3rd party drivers," although I've yet to find any.
Click to expand...
If you're referring to Knowledge Base article Q309623, then my reading of it is that third party drivers are only in regard to 3 mode drives - a special kind of 3.5" drive that supports 720K/1.2M/1.44M formats. I have read somewhere that most Japanese 3.5" diskette drives are 3 mode drives.

Note the line in the article, "Note You can format these disks only by using a command at a command prompt." That works for 1.2MB and 720KB disks, as follows.

1.2MB disk in 1.2MB drive ---> FORMAT A: /T:80 /N:15
720KB disk in 1.44MB drive --> FORMAT A: /FS:FAT
 
modem7 said:
Matt did that (see Matt's, "My BIOS is set to identify drive A as a 5.25" 360K floppy"). So did I.


If you're referring to Knowledge Base article Q309623, then my reading of it is that third party drivers are only in regard to 3 mode drives - a special kind of 3.5" drive that supports 720K/1.2M/1.44M formats. I have read somewhere that most Japanese 3.5" diskette drives are 3 mode drives.

Note the line in the article, "Note You can format these disks only by using a command at a command prompt." That works for 1.2MB and 720KB disks, as follows.

1.2MB disk in 1.2MB drive ---> FORMAT A: /T:80 /N:15
720KB disk in 1.44MB drive --> FORMAT A: /FS:FAT
Click to expand...


You sure on the 720kb disk in 1.44MB drive ?
Shouldn't you have to notify the system that it's 9spt, ie, add /N:9 on the end, and not the standard 18spt for a 1.44MB disk?

Also, are you sure the /FS parameter is valid for floppies ?


Tony
 
Yes, the /FS option is intended for hard drive use.

Wouldn't you know it. Previously whenever I tried "format a:" or "format a: /t:80 /n:9" I saw an error message. I had connected the error messages to Microsoft article Q309623 in which the 'format' ability is listed against 360K, 1.2M, 1.44M but not against 720K. That led me to experiment and discover that "format a: /fs:fat" worked. Now, I'm finding that all three work (on 720k disks that I've degaussed). I don't know what's changed.

C:\>format a:
C:\>format a: /t:80 /n:9
C:\>format a: /fs:fat
 
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