USB FDD Will it work when...

Okay my current FDD isn't working properly, it won't recognize any floppies I put in it. I'm sure all the cables are in all the way and correctly. This means the problem could be a bad FDD, bad floppy cable, or the floppy controller on the motherboard has gone bad. To avoid checking to see which of these three is the problem, I've thought about buying a USB FDD. If I buy a USB FDD, will my computer recognize this as the default FDD and therefore when I press F6 when installing Windows XP (F6 does the request to search the A: drive for SATA drivers) search the USB FDD for a SATA drivers disk? Not sure if it will or not, if it won't, then buying this FDD is pointless since the only reason (currently) that I need to get a working FDD is to reformat and to do so I need to install the SATA drivers while installing Windows XP.

I can do it on the rig in my sig BUT I have the option in BIOS to boot from "USB floppy" I would check to see if it's an option in yours.

So if I have that option and enable it, then whenever Windows XP is looking for my floppy drive to install the SATA drivers from it will find my USB floppy drive?

I don't have SATA so I can't tell you for sure, but it works for boot disks so I don't see why it would be a problem.

I think it'll work. Thats probably one of the drivers windows setup loads automatically.

Good luck
-Andy

Thanks for the input. I think I'll wait until someone is positive that this will work because I don't want to waste my money on a USB Floppy if it won't work for teh SATA drivers during Windows XP setup.

I haven't done it, but as long as USB support is active at that time, it will work. A USB floppy is nice and handy to have anyways. It's nice getting rid of that ugly drive on the front of your PC - I removed mine and just use my USB drive, but it would be nice to have the floppy at times every-so-often.

Well see what I think Windows XP does is it searches only the floppy controller, the outlet or accepter that your floppy cable goes into. And if it doesn't find anything in that, then it will fail to install the SATA drivers. Since the USB FDD wouldn't use anything but a USB port, which XP won't search for, I think this won't work. Anyone with first hand experience or definite knowledge about this situation?

I think USB Legacy floppy support in BIOS will do the trick. I think it's THAT easy.

You can get them for under $20 off eBay (thats how I got mine). And worse case it doesn't work and you get a useful tool out of it. You may be able to do this another way, take a look at this article http://www.overclockers.com/tips1167/ and the first one too. I don't know for sure but it may allow you to load those drivers automatically as well. The only cost is one CD and your time.