virtualbox.org

I'm having a difficult time getting my floppy drive to work on WIN98. Can someone please help?

By default the floppy drive is not setup in the guest settings.
With the guest shut down (not saved) go to the guests settings -> storage -> add controller -> add the floppy controller. The assign it to the real floppy or to an img file.

hey, thanks for the quick reply. I should have been a bit more clear in my writing. I've done that already. This is the error I receive when attempting to use it.


"The disk in drive A is not formatted. Do you want to format it now?"

""A:\ is not accessible. The device is not ready."

The disk is formatted. I've used it on the same system, using the same floppy drive in WINXP with no issues. I hope this sheds some light on what's going on. Any further help would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Techboy-

Win 95/98 does not understand FAT32 or NTFS (native) IIRC. So that would cause the problem you are seeing.
I think MS added support for FAT32 in 98 but unless you have the additional file it may not work.

The floppies are from 95! I didn't think that would've been an issue considering VM software is supposed to emulate Windows 95! Of course, I'm just teasing Is there anything that I can do?

You are both right... FAT32 was introduced in Win95 OSR2 (I remember it well because I was an official beta tester), so technically it came out after the original Win95 - and Win98 was the first new OS to support it natively. That's if you consider Win98 to be a new OS (personally I always considered it Win95 2.0).

@techboy - I find your description of the problem a bit vague. Please say exactly what you have done (e.g. did you tell the VM to connect to host drive "A:", are you using a host floppy drive or a floppy image?), and what you are trying to do. Maybe you can show a screenshot of how your "Storage" settings are configured.

General
Name:
Windows98
OS Type:
Windows 98
?System
Base Memory:
256 MB
Processor(s):
1
Boot Order:
Hard Disk, CD/DVD-ROM, Floppy
Display
Video Memory:
128 MB
3D Acceleration:
Enabled
2D Video Acceleration:
Enabled
Remote Desktop Server:
Disabled
Storage
IDE Controller
IDE Primary Master:
Windows98.vdi (Normal, 2.00 GB)
IDE Secondary Master (CD/DVD):
Host Drive 'D:'
Floppy Controller
Floppy Device 0:
Host Drive 'A:'
Audio
Host Driver:
Windows DirectSound
Controller:
ICH AC97
Network
Adapter 1:
PCnet-FAST III (NAT)
Serial Ports
Disabled
USB
Device Filters:
0 (0 active)
Shared Folders
None

I took a snap shot of the system but couldn't figure out where it stored the image so I just copied and pasted. I'm attempting to use the host floppy drive, which functions under normal conditions.

To much.

Try: RAM=64 MB, VGA=4 MB, 2D/3D disabled.

As far as I can tell you have configured the VM correctly to access the host floppy drive A. So assuming that drive exists then I don't know why you would get errors.

Perhaps you should try making an image of the floppy on the host, and mounting the image instead of accessing the physical host drive. There are freeware tools around which can make the image for you. It'll be interesting to see if the imaging tool can read the disk.

They also show that they are using XP as a guest. It would be interesting to know if the floppy worked in that guest.

@stephen.becker
You need a minimum of 14MB of VGA memory in order to run the graphical aspect of the VMBox. . .according to the VMBox. However, I did drop all requirements down to their minimums and gave it a shot. Now, I still receive the same error messages but 3 1/2 minutes later! I'm just joking, but it does take a bit longer obviously.

@Perryg
Where do you see that it says XP is being used as a guest? It's the native OS on the system that I'm using currently.

@mpack
Any tools that you recommend?

Okay, so I downloaded Floppy Image from Cnet and attempted to use it. The program doesn't see the contents of the floppy disk. However, when I go to my computer and click on the drive, I can see the contents just fine. This is most perturbing.

And, yet another update. I managed to get the A:\ drive to work momentarily by sharing out of my XP machine. The program began to install but when it asked for the second disk it just chocked and wouldn't read it. I attempted with disk 1 again and now it will open the drive but sees no contents. Back to where I was, and even more confused. I also installed another floppy drive, labeled B:\, which the WIN98 machine labels D:\ for some reason, it also has the same issues. *sigh*

@Perryg
Where do you see that it says XP is being used as a guest? It's the native OS on the system that I'm using currently.

ummm in your profile

If you boot your XP guest (that your profile says you have) does the floppy work in it!

Oh, sorry, that doesn't belong there. But, when I boot my non-virtual XP machine the floppy is resident and it does function correctly. I even attempted to run the program in compatibility mode, which it installed under, it just doesn't run.