callbobby69, on Aug 25 2008, 05:34 AM, said:
......There is no A drive installed in the computer..I have shut that down in the bios and no physical drive exists .
Having a floppy in the disk will not matter as the drive shows no sign of life during boot...ie. , it can't read if 1 is there or not .
No internal....Floppy is not being used on the Mother and the slot is open and free .....
Well seeing as your PC should be recognising this first as a USB device and second as a floppy this may not work...but first thing I'd do, would be to enable
all the options in BIOS relating to floppy drives
and USB devices. If your BIOS can't see the device I think its unlikely that Windows will be able to work with it no matter what drivers you do or do not have. My understanding is that your BIOS should be able to see it as a USB connected floppy (but without knowing your specs it is possible it may only see it as a USB device and not recognise it as a floppy). Either way it should still be seeing it. Often there is an option in BIOS for plug and play hardware to be detected either by OS (Windows) or the BIOS itself. Try toggling this to the other option (to what its already set).
callbobby69, on Aug 25 2008, 05:34 AM, said:
MY..XP ..doe's not contain a driver for this floppy as the manufacturer and microsoft state . It may be that i installed it as an upgrade by inserting my win FULL 98 when it asked for proof that i had an existing version installed ie. I did not install it over my 98 , i installed it by itself on a formated C: drive by showing my proof of ownership as a CD of WIN 98 when it asked me to.....
If you did a clean install of Windows XP on a clean partition then Windows XP
should have a driver for this device. I would try all your USB ports. I have a portable harddrive that will occasionally be recognised as an "Unknown USB Device" on my PC but it works flawlessly on all the other PCs I use it on. I'm not sure why it does this but it does. Often a restart solves it (but not always), I have put it down to either flakey motherboard/USB ports or possibly a harddrive (C:?) on the way out. Perhaps you are having similar issues?
callbobby69, on Aug 25 2008, 05:34 AM, said:
"At least, that's a place to start, since there are NO drivers to add for a USB Floppy Drive on windows XP.".....and that's the exact reason i need to look beyond the XP disc . I am positive that mitsumi makes a driver for this drive due to the fact that it is available on a full version of Win XP . I just don't happen to have that and need another resource in order to get the driver .
I strongly doubt that Mitsumi make a XP device driver for this drive as my understanding is that XP contains a generic driver (written by Microsoft) for USB floppy drives. As long as Mitsumi make a device that confirms to the standard then why would they make more work for themselves? If you have confirmed that this device is not faulty (by trying it on someone else's version of XP - as you have suggested you have done) then it seems that it is a specific problem with your machine (hardware or software). Perhaps you could try either locating the driver used on the other XP machine (use driver properties page in device manager on the PC it works on) and copy that onto yours or just try to confirm you have it. It may be worth copying it over anyway just in case your version is corrupted (although seems unlikely if you've done a clean reinstall - windows does a file integrity check on install). Try manually selecting to use the driver (either yours or the one from the other XP machine) with the drivers properties page from device manager. To confirm that all is well with your HDD, perhaps try a full checkdisk (Start > Run > type "chkdsk c: /f /r" - without quotes, <Enter> then restart), followed by a Windows filecheck (after it has run checkdisk and you are logged back into windows: Start > Run > type "sfc /scannow" - again no quotes, <Enter>). You will possibly need your XP disk handy for the file check although you shouldn't need it much after a clean install.
callbobby69, on Aug 25 2008, 05:34 AM, said:
Jaclaz.....Nothing is going to help me find it in the computer due to the fact that it is not installed by any software yet ...as long as it is not installed..and only plugged in to the USB.......could be the ..unknown device....but that's showing no properties ..................................................................
I think it is still worthy of following jaclaz's advice and see how you go. I think both of those topics he linked to are worthy of a good read and try some of the stuff there. The second thread even mentions the generic Windows driver that is on the XP CD (although I'm not 100% sure thats what its called .
Perhaps another possibility may be some conflict between this device and something else on your system. Possibly worth disconnecting any other devices and try then.
[edit] Using the info I gained from reading jaclaz's second link I have confirmed that the (generic MS) driver is in my XP system partition
and confirmed that it supports Mitsumi drives. From usbstor.inf:
[Manufacturer]
; sorted by VID
%Generic.Mfg%=Generic
%Mitsumi.Mfg%=Mitsumi
%HP.Mfg%=HP
%NEC.Mfg%=NEC
To confirm that you have this driver do a search in the Windows folder (make sure you include system files and hidden files or otherwise you won't find it) for "usbstor". On my system there are 3 files: usbstor.inf & usbstor.PNF in C:\Windows\inf\ and USBSTOR.SYS in C:\Windows\drivers\
This post has been edited by JedMeister: 24 August 2008 - 08:13 PM
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Posted 23 August 2008 - 09:39 PM
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Posted 24 August 2008 - 09:21 AM
)
..an installer told me that she installs these all the time and that i needed to shut off the bios floppy drive by selecting not installed . That way it would see the external as being the floppy as "A" ........hmmmmmmm..maybe she's blond .
too true! 
