Are you sure the floppy's themselves are in good working order? I once had a few bad floppy's; it looked like they worked fine on Windows 7, but I actually wasn't able to open & write files to them. In my older machines these floppy's wouldn't show any signs of life at all! 😒

Yes, they're fine. I can copy files to and from the floppies fine on Windows 10. No errors whatsoever. I can also write to the floppies on the Pentium machine if I format the floppies on that machine. As far as I can tell all floppies and drives are fine.
I should also of mentioned any floppy formatted on any other machine is unreadable by the USB floppy drive, and it always wants to format it!

Sounds to me like the alignment of the heads in the USB floppy drive are not the same as the regular floppy drives.

The older Dell laptop floppy drive modules are also able to be used as USB drives. I've got quite a few and they always seem to work fine.

My main USB floppy is a 2x speed one that formats/writes to disks that are able to be read by older machines.

cyclone3d wrote:

Sounds to me like the alignment of the heads in the USB floppy drive are not the same as the regular floppy drives.

The older Dell laptop floppy drive modules are also able to be used as USB drives. I've got quite a few and they always seem to work fine.

My main USB floppy is a 2x speed one that formats/writes to disks that are able to be read by older machines.

What make/model is your USB floppy drive? I ordered an older looking HP USB floppy drive to see if that works. The one I have is a cheap, generic one off eBay.

It is:
SmartDisk FDUSB-TM2

It is sorta wonky on Windows 10 though... Sometimes it will not work unless it is plugged in before I boot up my computer.
It also has weird issues with disk imaging software in that if I don't open the disk first and then close explorer, the imaging software will think it is open somewhere else.

But it does work just fine.

But really any should work as long as it isn't faulty.

The drive is broken, I'd say. If it can't read any floppies other than the ones it formatted itself, then you have a damaged drive in your hands.

realnc wrote:

The drive is broken, I'd say. If it can't read any floppies other than the ones it formatted itself, then you have a damaged drive in your hands.

Or he has some stupid third-party floppy writing utility installed that writes in a proprietary format.

yawetaG wrote:

realnc wrote:

If it can't read any floppies other than the ones it formatted itself, then you have a damaged drive in your hands.

Or he has some stupid third-party floppy writing utility installed that writes in a proprietary format.

Doesn't explain why it can't read existing floppies though.

cyclone3d wrote:

Sounds to me like the alignment of the heads in the USB floppy drive are not the same as the regular floppy drives.

This is what i'm thinking-- it's so badly out of alignment it can only read its own diskettes. However, I'm not clear on what happens when it's a commercially-prepared diskette. If it's having trouble with those, then that about clinches it as a severe misalignment.

I've used an automotive feeler gauge set to align a VIC-1541 diskette drive, but I'm not sure if that's possible on a 3.5" diskette drive, or that particular one.

To send files to your 286, why not installing a nic in it and send files through the network. No more file size limitations, faster, etc ...

Deksor wrote:

To send files to your 286, why not installing a nic in it and send files through the network. No more file size limitations, faster, etc ...

I already have installed a NIC in there. But I need to get a TCP DOS driver (and possibly card driver. Windows 3.11 supports the card outta the box, but I doubt DOS 6.22 will( on there to use it) So it's catch 22!!

yawetaG wrote:

realnc wrote:

The drive is broken, I'd say. If it can't read any floppies other than the ones it formatted itself, then you have a damaged drive in your hands.

Or he has some stupid third-party floppy writing utility installed that writes in a proprietary format.

Nope, the built in Windows format utility. The same one you use for SD cards & USB drives.

AlaricD wrote:

cyclone3d wrote:

Sounds to me like the alignment of the heads in the USB floppy drive are not the same as the regular floppy drives.

This is what i'm thinking-- it's so badly out of alignment it can only read its own diskettes. However, I'm not clear on what happens when it's a commercially-prepared diskette. If it's having trouble with those, then that about clinches it as a severe misalignment.

I've used an automotive feeler gauge set to align a VIC-1541 diskette drive, but I'm not sure if that's possible on a 3.5" diskette drive, or that particular one.

This could well be it. The Model 30 is saying "sector not found". yet it will still read the eBay MS-DOS 6,22 & Windows 3.11 disks. The USB floppy will also read its own formatted floppies. It's obviously borked,

How many other drives do you have? Because it could be the other drive is borked but the USB one is fine 😜

There are adapters that allow you to connect a proper floppy drive via USB, so you don't have to deal with the head alignment garbage of strictly USB floppy drives. Perhaps seek one of those out, and use a proper drive with your desktop? My primary desktop's motherboard was one of the last to still have a floppy header on the motherboard, but only supports one drive at a time, EITHER 3.5" or 5.25", and a reboot is required to change between types.

3 other floppy equipped PCs. One is acting up. The other 2 (IBM Model 30 and ACER 5133DR Pentium 1) work fine.

Turns out it WAS the cheap generic eBay floppy drive. I got the HP USB floppy drive today, and floppies written on that are read fine by the Model 30!!

Thanks for the help!! 😀