Knowledge Base

Error Messages While Backing Up to Some Floppy Disk Drives

Article ID: 159153

Article Last Modified on 11/15/2006

Microsoft Windows 95
Microsoft Windows 95
Microsoft Windows 95

This article was previously published under Q159153

SYMPTOMS

When you are using Microsoft Backup to back up data to certain models of floppy disk drives, you may receive the following error messages:

Warning: Tape needs to be erased before operation can proceed.

Microsoft Backup unable to read from the disk or network drive. Quit and restart Backup, and then try again.

Warning: This operation has been canceled by the system.

CAUSE

Some models of floppy disk drives require specific timing and delays between disk operations to work properly. The timing implemented by the Windows 95 floppy disk driver is not sufficient for some of these drives.

RESOLUTION

STATUS

This problem no longer occurs in Windows 98. To resolve this problem, install the current version of Windows. For information about the current version of Windows, visit http://www.microsoft.com/windows.

MORE INFORMATION

There are two separate timing issues known to relate to this symptom:

Some floppy disk drives require a specific minimum delay time after a Write operation, before a Step operation can occur.

Some floppy disk drives require a specific minimum head-settling time between a Seek and subsequent Write operation.

In each of these cases, the delay required by the drive is greater than the Windows 95 floppy disk driver implements.

Keywords: kberrmsg kbqfe kbhardware kbpolicy kbprb kbhotfixserver KB159153