I have an LS-120 3.5" internal drive installed in my computer. It was installed by the supplier of the compuer - PC WORLD. It is eighteen months old and has not been used a great deal, however, recently it has stopped reading 120mb superdisks making a buzzing noise every 3 or 4 seconds (as though it were trying to read or write) and finally coming up with the message that the disk is not formatted. I have tried it with a number of Windows/PC formatted LS-120 disks. Oddly enough, it still reads 1.44mb 3.5" floppies perfectly normally. Should I replace it or is there a problem that I might be able to fix?
I've got a few of those drives in different machines and they do seem to misbehave from time to time, though overall I like 'em. (I mostly use them via a Panasonic digital camera---large storage is good) I've found that simply deleting the entry for the LS120 in Device Manager and then letting Windows find it and re-install on the next boot will take care of the small oddities....worth a try at least. Should say though that when my camera (it uses an LS120 drive) started in to do exactly what your internal drive is now doing---recognizing 1.44 floppies but not the Superdiscs---I had to send it back to Panasonic for repairs. Don't want to sound alarmist and try the delete/reboot first, you never know...Jim
Thanks for the suggestion. I tried deleting it from the hardware profile in Control Panel/System, but windows (ME) did not detect the drive after two or three reboots. I suspect that the LS-120 (which I now recall is actually 4 years old and was transferred from my previous computer) is not a plug and play compatible device. I reinstalled using an installation disk that came with the drive. Coincidentally (and I do think it was a coincidence) the LS-120 drive read a superdisk - once! but would not do it again - this has happened before, sudden random and isolated moments when it works properly, followed by the more usual refusal to read LS-120 disks. I have decided to buy a head cleaning kit. Given that the drive still has the potential to access LS-120 disks, it may be that it just needs claening. I'll let you know if it works MckMth
Imation had two possible causes to the "Format Disk" problem. One was the drive needs cleaning and the other was the power supply was too low. Probably, cleaning is the answer. My drive is external and when I got that "Farmat Disk" message (along with weird noises) I ejected the disk and turned off the power to the drive (mine is external) and started over and that solved it for me. After I went from Win98SE to WinMe, it never happened again. Had the drive almost 2 years and never cleaned it until now with the Imation Cleaning Disk. Now watch my luck change.
Over the past few days I had actually got the LS-120 to read LS-120 disks on two isolated occasions, whilst reading 1.44mb disks all the time. I had come to the conclusion that cleaning was the answer and have ordered a kit from an on-line supplier - Thanks for confirming my suspicions - I let you know if it works!