FAT(32) media sometimes accessible, sometimes not -- strange solutionfound

  • Thread starter Thread starter Percival P. Cassidy
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Percival P. Cassidy

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I wrote earlier of a problem on one machine with XP Home SP3. It would

not read floppies of FAT32-formatted thumb drives that were readable on

other machines. I could format a floppy on this machine, but DIR claimed

that it did not have a recognizable file system. RMB -> Properties

showed the file system as RAW.



Now I find that this happens only if the machine is booted with no

FAT32-formatted media attached. If I boot up with a FAT32-formatted

external drive or thumb drive in place, it can read them and will

continue to be able to read FAT(32) media even when the one(s) present

at boot time has/have been detached.



Is this behavior normal? If not, how do I remedy it?



Perce
 
FAT(32) media sometimes accessible, sometimes not -- strangesolution found

Percival P. Cassidy wrote:

> I wrote earlier of a problem on one machine with XP Home SP3. It would

> not read floppies of FAT32-formatted thumb drives that were readable on

> other machines. I could format a floppy on this machine, but DIR claimed

> that it did not have a recognizable file system. RMB -> Properties

> showed the file system as RAW.

>

> Now I find that this happens only if the machine is booted with no

> FAT32-formatted media attached. If I boot up with a FAT32-formatted

> external drive or thumb drive in place, it can read them and will

> continue to be able to read FAT(32) media even when the one(s) present

> at boot time has/have been detached.

>

> Is this behavior normal? If not, how do I remedy it?



I have seen such reports before but I've never

seen a cause or a solution. I have NTFS only

computers without a floppy drive, and there is

no problem with FAT formatted USB drives under

XP SP2+SP3.



Creating a very small FAT formatted partition on

the internal drive and removing it's drive letter

would be a cure.





Uwe
 
FAT(32) media sometimes accessible, sometimes not -- strangesolution found

On 02/15/10 07:29 pm, I wrote:



> I wrote earlier of a problem on one machine with XP Home SP3. It would

> not read floppies of FAT32-formatted thumb drives that were readable on

> other machines. I could format a floppy on this machine, but DIR claimed

> that it did not have a recognizable file system. RMB -> Properties

> showed the file system as RAW.

>

> Now I find that this happens only if the machine is booted with no

> FAT32-formatted media attached. If I boot up with a FAT32-formatted

> external drive or thumb drive in place, it can read them and will

> continue to be able to read FAT(32) media even when the one(s) present

> at boot time has/have been detached.

>

> Is this behavior normal? If not, how do I remedy it?



OK, I think I found the real problem: the sptd.sys file left behind

after an apparently incomplete uninstallation of Daemon Tools, a utility

that allows an .iso file to be treated as a CD or DVD.



I had to download the stand-alone Daemon Tools installer and select the

Uninstall option. Running the uninstall process that had been installed

along with the original installation apparently had not been entirely

successful.



Perce
 
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