3.5 inch 1.44 MB floppy disks which work OK with Windows PCs are suddenly Not accessed by MS DOS PCs where they were accessed like a breeze for the past
50 years.
I have tried cleaning the FDDs with IPO on ear buds but am hesitant to open the drives to clean the HEADS for fear of disturbing the heads alignments.
FDDrive head Cleaning kits are not available anywhere in India - US firms which have them say that they do not ship to India!!
I have changed the FDD Data cable - No use!
I have run fprot antivirus - No use
Can this be due to some other cause?
Can somebody in the forum or admin help me, pls?
E-mail: [emailprotected]Have you tried accessing these disks on the same exact SYSTEM that runs both Windows and DOS to keep with the same drive. A known drive that works with Windows on the same system, and then boot to DOS on that same system and see if the disk can then be accessed.

The DOS systems unable to access the disks could be a number of reasons.

Also which version of DOS are these DOS systems running, and is any compression tools being used to try to cram more data onto the 1.44MB disks that DOS might not be able to read?

As well as what (File System) are these disks USING, they should be in FAT file system?

Is there any use of long file names that might not be supported by DOS, but Windows can read ? ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8.3_filenameI'd suspect the drive itself before assumng it's a DOS issue...
Try another drive.
Please clarify.
Is this ture?
You have a dual boot sytems. Windows and MS-DOS
The drive is visible in Windows.
The drive is not visible in MS-DOS.
Same machineme, same Floppy dirve.
IF so-
That would suggesnt the MS-DOS does not have the right drivers.1 quick question...why have you not thru all these years copied all of those to a media such as CD;s and or thunb drive ? ?

Just curious...I was going to ask same question but thought that maybe they were sticking with floppies because it was the simplest compatibility between Windows and DOS. DOS version unknown to us as well so it might not even have MSCDEX. USB Drive SUPPORT with DOS version unknown as well is sketchy. So I DIDNT ask just assuming it was floppy based on the simplest form of data compatibility for a "sneaker network" (transfer walking the data from Windows to DOS systems and back).

In manufacturing I have seen this implemented where older machinery on old computers running DOS is still booting off and running off floppies etc, and Windows systems can be used to edit parameters for machine instructions with ease etc.For less than $20 he could buy a new 2.5 floppy and use it a tool to isolate issues with other drives.

from ebay...
What is your time worth? I suggested that above...