Using LS120 as A:\ drive.

[erale]

I'd like to use my LS120 drive as A: drive on my system. How do I make my system recognize this LS120 as A: drive??

[DougM]

I was able to set it up in the BIOS, I have had compatibility problems though. 1.44MB floppies written with the LS120 cannot always be read by old floppy drives.

[erale]

Doug, Thanks for the reply. I have the LS120 drive working but I still get a listing for a 3 1/2" drive in "My Computer", when I try to access this drive the computer locks up. The LS120 is listed correctly as a Removable Disk. My motherboard and BIOS allows the LS120 to boot the pc, which also works fine. My problem is the annoying listing in My Computer and not being able to formerly call the LS120 A:\ drive.

[Stan]

Hi

Make sure that you have remove the floppy disk support in the BIOS.
The annoying bit is that you HAVE to tell your machine that you don't have any floppy disk and that you are going to use the LS120 as the a: drive.

I have a Panasonic LS120 and I have no poblem under Win NT4/Win 98 dual boot.

Hope this help

Stan

[erale]

Stan,

Actually, I've had better success telling my BIOS that I have an A: drive and it is a 3 1/2". If I tell it "none" I have more problems.My LS120 is an Imation internal. I've seen Gateway machines using the LS120 as A:drive, not sure how to make it happen. I've had many problems with the LS120 causing system lockups. I'm just about ready to go another route or just go back to the 1.44 drive. Any suggestions??

[Susan]

erale,

I've had the exact problem that you're speaking of. I was unable to get WIN to remove the old drive, even by telling the BIOS there was none. If I happened to click on the wrong dring by mistake, it locked just like yours. And, it did work better when I enabled the old floppy in BIOS. Unfortunately the problem only disappeared when I reformated and reinstalled win. Then the new drive drive worked perfectly as A:

Funny thing is that I ended up reinstalling the old drive along with the LS120 for compatibility reasons in running Linux. So I run with both...

I'm wondering where the registry edit might be in Win to get rid of that pesky drive when it's not really there?




[This message has been edited by Susan (edited 06-07-99).]

[ANTONIO E GUERRA]

Well, it all depends if your motherboard bios supports the Ls-120. However, the way it works for me it as follows:
(1) Go to your bios and in the first screen (where you can see the hard drive and floppy) declared a none 1.44 floppy drive;
(2) Go to the peripherals and disable the fdc controller support;
Reboot the machine. You may see the Ls-120 listed as a floptical device in the startup screen.
In Windows, check the system devices. You may have a floppy standard and Imation drive listed.
If your motherboard is one of the new ones, you will be able to boot even from an Ls-120.
Good luck and hope it helps you!

[hai]

I met the same problem after removed a dead floppy drive, and tried all methods without success(disable floppy drive in bios, enable "report no FDD" in bios, delete Floppy Disk Controller in win98 control panel). Finally, I figured out just run clearnsweep4.0, clear all invalid values in registry. Now, the zip disk becomes A:, in win98, A: is still shown as a 3.5" floppy, but it's zip disk indeed and works without any trouble so far. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

[Susan]

I figured there would be some type of registry edits that could be made to get WIN to forget the Floppy Drive.

Thanks hai http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

[erale]

Thanks Hai,

Ill also give that a try. In the interim I just re-installed the old 3 1/2" drive, but long term I'd like to use the LS120.

[Susan]

erale,
I did a search in the registry for anything known as 'flop', figuring that would be the magic string.

Well, it was...there were dozens of entries big & small relating to my floppy drives and I would hesitate before I were to delete or change any of them. Maybe cleansweep is the way to go.

[erale]

Susan,

Is Cleansweep available somewhere for download?? I thought I ran into it somewhere but I can't remember. I think I have an older version of Uninstaller, not sure if it would do the same thing. What processor and motherboard are you using?? I'm working on my project PC, a BH6 with a 300A Celeron overclocked to 450. I had even more problems using the LS120 on my other machine, 233mhz PII on a BCM KR632 motherboard. Would love to make it work properly on one of these machines.

[Susan]

erale,

I'm using a Soyo 5EMA/AMD 400 with BIOS updated, and ...my BIOS supports an LS drive. It is WIN98 that's the problem.

The newest version of Clean Sweep is 4.5. If you are using WIN98, don't use any utilites which are older and made for WIN95. That could cause some real headaches.

Here's a link to download version 4.5 for $29.00, and there is a rebate by mail for $10.00. shop.symantec.com/ncs45buy.html (http://shop.symantec.com/ncs45buy.html)

And here's a link for a trial of version 4.0. I'm not sure if 4.0 is good for WIN98.
www.quarterdeck.com/cgi-bin/download.pl?CleanSweep (http://www.quarterdeck.com/cgi-bin/download.pl?CleanSweep)

If you get it cleaned up with it, let me know. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

[quidne]

I`ve got an LS120 and text said trying to change drive letter would cause problems and crash`s. Quidne