Floppy Drive Troubleshooting

Directions

The following are common problems customers may have with their floppy drives/disks. Research the problems online and come up with solutions.

You are sitting at your desk, feet propped up, playing a nice game of half life when the phone rings. You receive the following help desk calls. Explain to your customers what is wrong with their hard drive and suggest a course of action.

1. Carrot Top McGraw called in a panic. His novel was stored on his floppy disk and (of course) he didn’t have a backup. He inserted his floppy, tried to change directories to the A: drive (in DOS) and nothing happened. After awhile the following message came up: “Not reading drive A:, Abort, Retry, Fail?” He keeps hitting “R” for retry but the message just keeps coming up.

What is probably the problem?

First step he should follow:

Second step he should follow:

Suggestions for the future:

2. Parsnip Lee is having problems with his floppy drive. He has this month’s payroll on a floppy. It reads fine in his computer. When he takes the floppy to his boss, his boss can’t read it. Other floppies work fine in both computers, but anything he formats in his computer but takes to his boss’ computer doesn’t work.

What is probably the problem?

First step he should follow:

Second step he should follow:

Suggestions for the future:

3. Camelia Clingenhopper is trying to start her computer with her DOS startup disk. It just won’t work! What can she do!? She keeps getting the error, Track 0 bad, disk not usable. It worked yesterday and no one has had access to it, nor have any changes been made. She has an old computer and this is the only DOS floppy she has. She is in a panic and ready to throw the computer through the window.

What is probably the problem?

First step she should follow:

Second step she should follow:

Suggestions for the future:

4. Grassnose Finkle is trying to save an important document to her disk. She’s in a panic. No matter how many times she tries to save, she gets the error, Write-protect error writing drive A: She’s relatively new to computers and is, of course, freaking out.

What is probably the problem?

First step he should follow:

Second step he should follow:

Suggestions for the future:

5. Snacky Doodle is trying to start up his computer and it’s not working. Every time he reboots it goes through the POST and seems to pass everything just fine. There are no beeps when it starts up. Just this error message: Non-system disk or disk error. Replace and strike any key when ready. First of all, he can’t find the any key. Second of all, he’s (you guessed it) in a panic.

What is probably the problem?

First step he should follow:

Second step he should follow:

Suggestions for the future:

6. Dot Polka is a smart cookie and rarely ever calls. When she does you know she really has a problem. Her floppy drive doesn’t seem to be working. She has tried more than one disk, have restarted the computer, has tried disks in other computers (to make sure it isn’t the floppy disk itself). Nothing. She needs to put a file on a floppy. Fortunately, she’s intelligent and is not in panic. She just emailed the file to a friend who put it on a floppy for her. However, she really does need her floppy drive to work. You grab your DDD and head to Dot’s desk.

What is probably the problem?

What is the first thing you’ll do?

You test the drive and find that the azimuth is askew. Explain to Dot what this means.

What will you do to fix her problem?