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Cannot get internal floppy drive to work.

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G0AOZ

Technical User
Nov 6, 2002
2,342
GB
XP Pro installation, SP3 and all updates. Installed Microsoft Virtual PC v6.0.156.6, and then installed Windows 98-SE. Everything else appears to work fine in Windows 98 apart from the 3.5" floppy disk drive.

The drive works fine in XP, and reads all disks ok. I have tried opening Floppy on the top menu bar in the WIN98 window and clicking on the Control Physical Drive A: option. The command is accepted (provided one inserts a disk in the drive beforehand), but trying to access the files using Explorer only results in the FDD's l.e.d. being permanently lit.

Any ideas?

ROGER - G0AOZ.
 
If you just want the Win98 machine to access the files on the floppy, copy them to your host's hard drive and drag them into the '98 machine's window, or share a folder.

If you want to use the floppy as a floppy, do the above but then use <link guide</link> to create a virtual floppy, then within the VM copy the files to it. Then you'll end up with a floppy disk image of the real disk, which you should be able to use within the VM with no problems.

Nelviticus
 
Nelviticus, many thanks for your reply. I'm just about to go out of the offie now but will check out your suggestions when I return.

I have also tried Virtual PC 2004, but that exhibits the same problem. I did initially get around it by sharing and mapping the A: drive in the host system!

Do you think it's just that a floppy disk drive is not designed to work in this way under Virtual PC, or is it a problem with the ASRock motherboard (BIOS?) that I'm using?

ROGER - G0AOZ.
 
Not sure, I've been able to use physical floppy drives in virtual PCs before so it definitely can work. I'm guessing that there's either a software or a hardware incompatibility somewhere along the chain. You could try fiddling with BIOS settings to see if it makes a difference but I'd be inclined to work around the problem unless I needed to use floppies regularly.

Nelviticus
 
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