DOS, XP and Floppy

[Rolf Seebach]

A user reports a problem with our PBDOS 3.5 program on a XP-Prof system.
The floppy does not finish loading and nothing happens, therefore.
Has anybody come across such a problem or is this a computer fluke?

The program works flawless with W2000-Prof and it was tested on a
regular XP system with a laptop and a desktop machine.

I also would appreciate a few words about the difference between
plain XP and XP-Professional?
Thanks, Rolf

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[Gary Stout]

Originally posted by Rolf Seebach:


I also would appreciate a few words about the difference between
plain XP and XP-Professional?
Thanks, Rolf

I don't have any ideas on the problem that you described, but the
main differences between the 2 xp versions is that the pro version
is more gear towards business with a lot more networking security
built in. Where as the typical home user doesn't need all of that,
therefore you have the home edition.

I use the home edition here and have not noticed any problems like
you described, but you said that version worked ok for you also.

Maybe someone else will have some ideas.



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Gary Stout
[email protected]

[Lance Edmonds]

Originally posted by Rolf Seebach:
The floppy does not finish loading and nothing happens...The program works flawless with W2000-Prof and it was tested on a regular XP system...

Do you mean the exact same <U>floppy disk</U> was tested by the customer on more than one PC? It sounds to me that the problem might be as simple as a corrupted floppy or a faulty floppy drive.




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Lance
PowerBASIC Support
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>

[Mike Doty]

It may have nothing to do with the operating system, but
could be the alignment of the floppy drives are much different.
We create floppies with a disk duplicating machine that is
adjusted to help prevent window margin problems.
If possible, get a diskette that is formatted on there
machine and copy the files to it.

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[Tom Hanlin]

Could be a problem with the floppy device driver. It's always a good idea to keep an eye on Windows Update.

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Tom Hanlin
PowerBASIC Staff

[Rolf Seebach]

Thanks everyone. Sorry I am late in replying.
I live smack in the center of Silicon Valley and here we must
have the worst ISP service, little of DSL available, and the
worst TV cable connections in the country. Figures.

Yes, there should be no difference between plain and prof. XP.
At least not as far as executing non-MS software is concerned.

No, it was not the same diskette as tried out on the XP system,
but there were two involved with identical problems. The user
went to another computer with Win98 and they both worked. Ergo,
no corrupted diskette.

Yes, it could be a misalignment of the heads. If the recording
bias is to one side and the reading bias to the other side of
the tracks, that could spell disaster. How to test for that?

The drive is also suspect but a computer with a XP system should
be of very recent vintage?

Here is something else I heard just now: A floppy did not fully
load and only a black screen showed, just as in my case. Nothing
was done. Then two months later all sorts of problems showed
up that went as far as being unable to boot the system, unable
to make changes, unable to go to SafeMode and try something
there. A technician was called and he found out that the
CD-ROM drive was bad and caused all the problems. Figure that!
The CD-ROM drive and not the floppy drive.

Then there was that recent multi-million dollar lawsuit by the
federal government against NEC, HP and a few others for supplying
defective floppy drives for years and not telling anybody about
it. Maybe somebody picked up that junk and now it shows up in
recent machines to 'save money' since "floppies are hardly ever
used?".

I guess we have to "grin and bear it".

Thanks for all the help, guys.

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