How to troubleshoot a floppy drive that doesn’t work

Address the five possible causes in the following order, starting with the easiest:

a) The floppy disk


- try using a different disk to prove that it isn’t simply the disk itself that is faulty.

b) The driver


- floppy drive technology hasn't changed for about 15 years so the Windows driver is really generic and I've never heard of any modern system where you had to load a Windows driver in order for the floppy drive to work. Having said that, it could still be corrupted in some way. Delete the floppy drive and floppy drive controller from Device Manager and reboot the PC. Windows will automatically re-detect the devices if they are working properly and will install the drivers for them again.

c) The IDE cable (inside the PC)


- try connecting a different connector on the cable to the drive;


- check that the red stripe on the cable is facing pin 1 on the motherboard socket (usually pointing towards the centre of the motherboard) and that it is facing the power connector (or pin 1 if it is labelled) on the drive;


- try using a different power connector (most PCs have two power connectors suitable for use with a floppy drive;


- try a different IDE cable.

d) The floppy drive (inside the PC)


- the only way to test the drive is to put it into another PC and see if it works there or replace the drive in the original PC.

e) The motherboard or floppy drive controller (inside the PC)


- pretty hard to test that too without replacing the motherboard in the PC or obtaining a separate floppy drive controller card to fit into a PCI or ISA slot on your motherboard.