Consider the following scenario. Read operations or write operations are performed on a floppy disk that is running on an early Microsoft operating system. Examples of early Microsoft operating systems include the following:
- Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition
- Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition
- Microsoft Windows 98
- Microsoft Windows 95
- Microsoft Windows 3.1
- MS-DOS
These operations may be performed slightly faster on one of these early Microsoft operating systems than on a newer Microsoft operating system.
Examples of newer Microsoft operating systems include the following:
- Windows Vista
- Microsoft Windows Server 2003
- Microsoft Windows XP
- Microsoft Windows 2000
- Microsoft Windows NT
This behavior occurs if you use a floppy disk controller (FDC) that is 100-percent compatible with the original floppy disk controller. In a worst-case scenario, the difference in performance speed may be as much as 16 seconds.
This behavior may occur because the newer operating systems that are listed in the "Symptoms" section use a different algorithm from the algorithm that is used in the earlier operating systems. The newer algorithm is intended to speed up floppy disk access. However, this algorithm is not optimized for floppy disk controllers that are 100-percent compatible with the original floppy disk controller. When the newer algorithm is used with these controllers, the controller may wait for the read/write head to settle over the track after each movement of the head. Additionally, the controller may wait for a full revolution of the disk to occur after each movement of the head. Therefore, performance speed may be reduced.
For more information about a related issue, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
159153
(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/159153/
)
Error messages while backing up to some floppy disk drives
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