• Welcome to Tux Reports: Where Penguins Fly. We hope you find the topics varied, interesting, and worthy of your time. Please become a member and join in the discussions.

No FAT or FAT32 access

  • Thread starter Percival P. Cassidy
  • Start date
P

Percival P. Cassidy

Flightless Bird
No response on ....help_and_support, so I'll try here.

I have WinXP Home SP3 on one machine and find that I am no longer able
to access FAT32-formatted thumb drives or FAT-formatted floppies: I can
read them on other systems, but this machine tells me they are unformatted.

No anti-virus/internet security software is in operation when I try this.

I've so seldom used floppies or FAT32-formatted media on this machine
that a whole lot of changes will have taken place since it was able to
read such media successfully.

I insert a floppy that has been formatted on another machine.
DIR A: from command prompt reports no recognizable file system.
CHKDSK /F A: reports file system is FAT, no errors found.
DIR A: reports no recognizable file system.
FORMAT A: reports success.
CHKDSK /F A: reports file system is FAT, no errors found.
DIR A: reports no recognizable file system.

Double-click on disk icon in My Computer reports disk is not formatted.
RMB -> Format reports Windows cannot complete format.
CHKDSK /F A: reports file system is FAT, no errors found.
DIR A: reports no recognizable file system.
Take disk to another machine; CHKDSK /F A: reports that file system is
FAT, no errors found.
I copy files to that disk on that machine; success.
Bring disk back to the problem computer; DIR A: reports no recognizable
file system.

Google found a reference to this (or a similar) problem at

http://www.updatexp.com/scannow-sfc.html

I copied the i386 folder from the installation CD to C:, made the
recommended changes to the registry, and ran

sfc /scannow

Nothing has changed as far as FAT-formatted media are concerned.

Perce
 
D

db

Flightless Bird
you mentioned "no longer
able to access" the media.

perhaps, you might try a
system restore point and
see if you can send the machine
back in time when you did
have access.

also, make a system restore
point for today,

that way you can bring back
your system from the older
version.

--
db·´¯`·...¸><)))º>
DatabaseBen, Retired Professional
- Systems Analyst
- Database Developer
- Accountancy
- Veteran of the Armed Forces
- @Hotmail.com
- nntp Postologist
~ "share the nirvana" - dbZen

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>


"Percival P. Cassidy" <Nobody@NotMyISP.net> wrote in message
news:hjcr76$nqq$1@news.eternal-september.org...
> No response on ....help_and_support, so I'll try here.
>
> I have WinXP Home SP3 on one machine and find that I am no longer able to
> access FAT32-formatted thumb drives or FAT-formatted floppies: I can read
> them on other systems, but this machine tells me they are unformatted.
>
> No anti-virus/internet security software is in operation when I try this.
>
> I've so seldom used floppies or FAT32-formatted media on this machine that
> a whole lot of changes will have taken place since it was able to read
> such media successfully.
>
> I insert a floppy that has been formatted on another machine.
> DIR A: from command prompt reports no recognizable file system.
> CHKDSK /F A: reports file system is FAT, no errors found.
> DIR A: reports no recognizable file system.
> FORMAT A: reports success.
> CHKDSK /F A: reports file system is FAT, no errors found.
> DIR A: reports no recognizable file system.
>
> Double-click on disk icon in My Computer reports disk is not formatted.
> RMB -> Format reports Windows cannot complete format.
> CHKDSK /F A: reports file system is FAT, no errors found.
> DIR A: reports no recognizable file system.
> Take disk to another machine; CHKDSK /F A: reports that file system is
> FAT, no errors found.
> I copy files to that disk on that machine; success.
> Bring disk back to the problem computer; DIR A: reports no recognizable
> file system.
>
> Google found a reference to this (or a similar) problem at
>
> http://www.updatexp.com/scannow-sfc.html
>
> I copied the i386 folder from the installation CD to C:, made the
> recommended changes to the registry, and ran
>
> sfc /scannow
>
> Nothing has changed as far as FAT-formatted media are concerned.
>
> Perce
 
L

Lem

Flightless Bird
Percival P. Cassidy wrote:
> No response on ....help_and_support, so I'll try here.
>
> I have WinXP Home SP3 on one machine and find that I am no longer able
> to access FAT32-formatted thumb drives or FAT-formatted floppies: I can
> read them on other systems, but this machine tells me they are unformatted.
>
> No anti-virus/internet security software is in operation when I try this.
>
> I've so seldom used floppies or FAT32-formatted media on this machine
> that a whole lot of changes will have taken place since it was able to
> read such media successfully.
>
> I insert a floppy that has been formatted on another machine.
> DIR A: from command prompt reports no recognizable file system.
> CHKDSK /F A: reports file system is FAT, no errors found.
> DIR A: reports no recognizable file system.
> FORMAT A: reports success.
> CHKDSK /F A: reports file system is FAT, no errors found.
> DIR A: reports no recognizable file system.
>
> Double-click on disk icon in My Computer reports disk is not formatted.
> RMB -> Format reports Windows cannot complete format.
> CHKDSK /F A: reports file system is FAT, no errors found.
> DIR A: reports no recognizable file system.
> Take disk to another machine; CHKDSK /F A: reports that file system is
> FAT, no errors found.
> I copy files to that disk on that machine; success.
> Bring disk back to the problem computer; DIR A: reports no recognizable
> file system.
>
> Google found a reference to this (or a similar) problem at
>
> http://www.updatexp.com/scannow-sfc.html
>
> I copied the i386 folder from the installation CD to C:, made the
> recommended changes to the registry, and ran
>
> sfc /scannow
>
> Nothing has changed as far as FAT-formatted media are concerned.
>
> Perce


Problems reading *floppy disks* formatted on another machine are not
uncommon with Win XP. Typically, this happens when the floppy was
formatted using Win 98 or Win 2k. I've not come across a similar
problem with thumb drives.

With respect to floppies, it's possible that the drive has become
misaligned, but more likely it's a problem with the media descriptor
byte, which XP uses but earlier versions of Windows do not. See
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/140060

It may also be possible to work around the floppy problem by installing
a different driver. See this ancient thread:
http://groups.google.com/group/micr...ardware+author:rwehavnfunyet#f57221cfa9ab4d38


--
Lem

Apollo 11 - 40 years ago:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/40th/index.html
 
P

Percival P. Cassidy

Flightless Bird
On 01/22/10 05:53 pm, Lem wrote:

>> No response on ....help_and_support, so I'll try here.
>>
>> I have WinXP Home SP3 on one machine and find that I am no longer able
>> to access FAT32-formatted thumb drives or FAT-formatted floppies: I
>> can read them on other systems, but this machine tells me they are
>> unformatted.
>>
>> No anti-virus/internet security software is in operation when I try this.
>>
>> I've so seldom used floppies or FAT32-formatted media on this machine
>> that a whole lot of changes will have taken place since it was able to
>> read such media successfully.


<snip>

> Problems reading *floppy disks* formatted on another machine are not
> uncommon with Win XP. Typically, this happens when the floppy was
> formatted using Win 98 or Win 2k. I've not come across a similar problem
> with thumb drives.
>
> With respect to floppies, it's possible that the drive has become
> misaligned, but more likely it's a problem with the media descriptor
> byte, which XP uses but earlier versions of Windows do not. See
> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/140060


But although the examples I gave that involved reformatting concerned
floppy disks, this machine cannot read FAT32-formatted thumb drives that
work fine on another machine either. I simply haven't tried reformatting
one of these thumb drives on this computer.

And your suggestion about a misaligned floppy drive doesn't explain why
this machine cannot read a disk that it has just formatted
(Successfully, according to chkdsk) in this same drive

> It may also be possible to work around the floppy problem by installing
> a different driver. See this ancient thread:
> http://groups.google.com/group/micr...ardware+author:rwehavnfunyet#f57221cfa9ab4d38


I'll investigate that. It does seem to me that it's likely to be a
driver problem.

Perce
 
Top