When a diskette is written by my Win95 PC, I cannot read it with my XP computer? What need I do? If i switch something, is it permanent? Kinda wierd, you'd think XP would be backward compatable?

does it give any kind of error message like "the disk is not formatted" or anything else when you try to read it?

There is no such problem with Windows XP reading floppy disks written under Windows 95, or any other Windows for that matter. It is more likely that the floppy drive you are using under the Windows 95 machine is not writting to the disk properly and may have a physical problem. As UAPyro has asked, could you provide us with more info as to what exactly is going wrong? It may also be the floppy disk, have you tried using a different disk? Try formatting it under the XP machine and write to it on the 95 machine and then see if it can be read again under XP.

There is no such problem with Windows XP reading floppy disks written under Windows 95

Actually, there is. I've read dozens of posts about this very problem with XP not reading floppies created on a different Windows OS, but no has yet go give a definitive answer as to why this is happening. And there doesn't seem to ba a common thread either. Some systems have zero problems, some just can't read them at all. I've been scouring Technet for an answer but haven't come up with any. If I do find something, I'll post back

Well personally I have never had a problem with it and I have never seen another post about it, however I am willing to admit I'm wrong if that's true.

I haven't seen any posts here but on other help Forums. It's against the rules to post links to other forums here so I won't but if your interested you can do a Google and find a few hits about this issue. Technet is no help on this either, I wonder if it's a permissions issue.

I've seen those post. But if you search carefull you'll see they're not all about Windows XP. Win98 can't read a floppy from Win95, WInME can't read floppies from WinXP, WInXP can't read floppies from Win2k, Mac can't read another Mac's floppy, etc.

The OS isn't the problem, either the diskette itself or the floppy drive in one of the machines is.

Try cleaning the drive heads on both pcs.