🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1993Sep19.163913.11247@leland.Stanford.EDU>, 
<milli@leland.Stanford.EDU> writes:
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milli
> From: milli@leland.Stanford.EDU (Manish Malhotra)
> Subject: Simple (?) problem in a: drive
> Message-ID: <1993Sep19.163913.11247@leland.Stanford.EDU>
> Sender: news@leland.Stanford.EDU (Mr News)
> Organization: Stanford University, California
> Date: Sun, 19 Sep 93 16:39:13 GMT
> Lines: 42
> 
> 
>  
> 
> Hello, all.  
> 
> I recently bought a 386 computer (used) and am experiencing a problem 
> 
> with the disk drive - a 5.25 floppy drive.  
> 
>  
> 
> PROBLEM:If I do a dir a: , it will give me the contents of the floppy in 
> 
> a: drive.  However, if I remove the floppy and insert another floppy into 
> 
> the a: drive and again do a dir a:, it will give me the same contents 
> 
> (i.e. of the previous floppy).  The light does go on, and it makes the
> 
> rotating noise, so it does seem to be "trying".  However, if I reboot
> 
> and insert the *2nd* floppy in, it will give me the accurate contents of
> 
> the floppy.
> 
>  
> 
> Can the problem be easily fixed?  Does it lie in the disk drive or in the 
> 
> p.c. hardware?  Any advice will be greatly appreciated.
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks. 
> 
>  
> 
> Paul Gupta
> 
> 510-528-0618
> 
> 

I've had this problem before on a couple of systems. It seems there is a sensor
in the drive that lets the PC know the floppy has been changed. One time I
fixed the problem by just "blowing out" the drive with a can of compressed air.
Another time I found the culprit to be a bad ribbon connector between the drive
and the controller. 

If neither of these work, I would suggest swapping your floppy drive with a
known good one. It might possibly be a controller problem, but it always seemed
to be drive related. Good Luck.


Carl Hughey
chughey@cos.com