Floppy Drive error

[lebogang]

Hi
I recently removed my harddrive from the pc to format & reinstall windows xp since my cd drive is not functioning. When I put it back after installing xp on a different machine to boot-up the pc the system shows an error "floppy drive error :A" What could be the problem and solution please?

[diurnal]

Hi
I recently removed my harddrive from the pc to format & reinstall windows xp since my cd drive is not functioning. When I put it back after installing xp on a different machine to boot-up the pc the system shows an error "floppy drive error :A" What could be the problem and solution please?

Do you have a disk in the floppy? Take it out if you do.

[Sylvander]

1. What you tried just isn't going to work, because:
(a) When you installed XP on the different PC [I'll call it PC2], then XP was matched to [and set up for working on] the particular set of hardware making up PC2, but not set up to work on the hardware making up your own PC [PC1].
(b) If you had the means to now do a "repair" installation on PC1, it would probably then work, but you don't have the means to do a repair [no functioning optical drive], and anyway, it is not the best way to go.
Best to do the following.

2. See Paul Komski's page on installing XP from the HDD, in particular Appendix 4 at the bottom on "PC with no Floppy nor CDROM Drive" (http://www.paulski.com/zpages.php?id=1711).
He took the trouble to write this page for a very good reason.

[larrymoencurly]

It's possible that the floppy ribbon cable is bad or installed backwards, but try going into the BIOS set-up and turn on the floppy seek at boot parameter. If the cable is installed right, that should cause the floppy drive to make a buzzing sound when its heads seek between tracks 0 and 80.

[Whyzman]

I also suspect that you installed the cable backwards, a very common error with floppy drives, as they don't have a "key" to help align the #1 pin with its mate on the cable.