machine: hp ze5375us laptop 2.4/40ghd cd rw/dvdr 3 1/2 floppy
OS: win xp home sp1 and latest updates downloaded

Problem: floppy drive stopped reading disks. says disk needs to be formatted and then that disk cannot be formatted.

at command prompt says can't read 0 track or invalid media.

worked fine July 23rd or so. stopped later possibly after installing a usb to serial port converter on com 6.

have tried uninstalling drivers and on restart computer says hardware installed and working fine.

boot log shows that one of the drivers doesn't load.

tried resetting bios to default.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

hrm... is this laptop drive removable?

I'd try reseating it. If reseating it doesn't help, your drive is most likely bad.

Can you boot a DOS disk with it?

I'm afraid I don't know what reseating is. It is built into a laptop under warranty so unlike a tower I can't just pop in and reconnect it.

I'm not sure it will boot from this because I don't actually remember and I'm currently using the computer, but I have the updated bios and I believe I tried to boot from that and it wouldn't read it.

If it's any help, the floppy I think died after I tried to hook up a IOGear USB to Serial connector to serial connect to a new computer and run "files and settings transfer wizard." The transfer never worked as the computers would not connect.

Thanks for giving this stupid little problem some thought. I don't often need the floppy and could get a usb external, but it just seems like this should be resolvable. Thanks again

If it's still under warranty, let HP handle it. I don't mean to drive you away from us, but they could be more helpful, especially if a return/exchange is needed.

thanks. I think you're right. Close the thread.