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Unrecognized external floppy disk drive

miam1987 Posted messages 5 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention   -  
brucine Posted messages 24868 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention   -

Hello,

I have an external 3.5-inch floppy drive that connects via USB from Toshiba, and a PC running Windows 11.

The problem is that when I connect the drive, it is detected and appears under the letter A. But when I insert a floppy disk into the drive, nothing happens.

What can I do?


4 answers

  1.
    jee pee Posted messages 9441 Registration date   Status Moderator Last intervention   9 981
     

    Hello,

    Nothing happens, obviously there has been no automatic execution for a long time.

    And when you click on A: in the explorer?

    You could try formatting a floppy disk. The issue may come from the disk or the drive. Have you tested the latter on another PC?

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  2. georges97 Posted messages 14592 Registration date   Status Contributor Last intervention   2 927
     

    Hello,

    Obsolete peripherals have not had driver creation in recent Windows versions (8, 10, 11).

    Not to mention the possibility of reading old file formats (FAT16, FAT32) and installing or using software compatible with them.

    Among the CCM archives related to this topic, the only one that provides a tested lead for Windows 10 is:

    https://forums.commentcamarche.net/forum/affich-37514359-floppy-drive

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    1. brucine Posted messages 24868 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention   4 171
       

      Hello,

      Iomega readers had proprietary drivers (sometimes even ports with specific connectors) and they no longer exist, it’s dead, but that’s probably not the case for a USB drive, except perhaps if it comes from AliExpress or the equivalent.

      Windows is able to read FAT16 as well as FAT32, but perhaps not FAT12; what is impossible on a 64-bit Windows version is to run on the diskettes in question (or elsewhere) a 16-bit real-mode DOS executable.

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  3. brucine Posted messages 24868 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention   4 171
     

    Hello,

    We assume the drivers are recognized; check in the Device Manager.

    Obviously the floppy disks, we assume they are not all new, may be damaged.

    Check if one of these disks is accessible not in Windows but in MS-DOS emulation; if you don’t have something that runs DOS in real mode: run cmd.exe and then DIR A:, or if you can copy something in the same mode, create a test text file at the root of C: (as small as possible, for example containing only blabla) and try:
    COPY "C:\test.txt" "A:\newtest.txt"

    Some formats (for example 720k disks) remain for some obscure reason readable under Win9X, but not under Windows 10 and 11.

    A fortiori if they also come from Win9X; they may have been formatted with the dedicated Drive Space tool or if they are disks intended for a non-Windows device with a format not recognized by Windows.

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  4. Kori-Kori Posted messages 2404 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention   413
     

    Hello,

    At the moment we don’t know where the problem comes from, computer, disks, the drive itself?

    It would be good, if possible, to test the drive with another computer.

    Under the letter A it is nevertheless fine.

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