Floppy Disk Fail(s) 40

[njolakoski]

Wut does that mean, how do i fix it?

[storm2k]

might mean a bad disk.

try another disk. if more than a few disks fail, you might need to replace the drive itself.

[Fr4gm4n]

Try another fdd, if it doesn't work.....could be the controller.

Steve.

[njolakoski]

i got these after reinstalling winxp

[Fr4gm4n]

I think someone posted a possible solution in another similar thread, go into your bios and disable the boot up floppy seek.

Steve.

[Peter M]

To mask the problem? No.

You either put a wrong FDD type down in BIOS setup, or your floppy disk drive isn't hooked up properly. Check cabling, cable orientation (!), bent pins, power supply to floppy disk drive. Or your drive is just plain broken and won't move its head anymore.

[Michael Chiew]

Another thing you might want to do is to re-install Service Pack 1. When you re-install Windows XP, some portions of SP1 are said to be lost. So uninstall SP1 and re-install it.

Back in the old days, floppy drive cables were 40 pins and 40 wires. Today's cables are all still 40 pins but 80 wires. Sometimes the BIOS gets confused so it issues the message FLOPPY DISK FAIL(S) 40. The 40 stands for 40 wires because it cannot reconcile itself to the fact that today cables are 80 wires.

If that is the case, then disabling BOOT UP FLOPPY SEEK in the BIOS should clear any misunderstanding it has. Of course, sometimes it also means there is something wrong with the floppy drive connection, or even the floppy drive itself.

Since this occurred during a re-installation of Windows XP, the BIOS may need to be reloaded with default settings, or disabling a setting as suggested.

Then the question of SP1 has to be considered. A re-installation of the OS has been known to remove some components in SP1. Hence, my suggestion to re-install SP1.

Michael Chiew

[sm8000]

I've never seen an 80-wire floppy cable, especially on my 34-pin floppy drive.