by SewOften 25 Sep 2016

I have a viking designer one that is new to me. I cannot make the embroidery disks work. I do not have a windows 98 or a floppy disk drive. When I insert the floppy (HV D1 - 1 of 4) the error message says "Disk is not accepted). Is it worth it to go this far backwards in technology? It has a mountain of accessories with the 3D Embroidery seeming to be the latest.

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by SewOften 26 Sep 2016

I want to thank each and everyone who have shared in this thread. The floppy is ordered, and a friend has offered up an old windows 98 computer. I hope I can get it to embroider.

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by pennifold 26 Sep 2016

Welcome to Cute and I see you have some great information. I had the older Husqvarna Designer 1 with card reader and gave it to my daughter. It has the 3D dongle. We live in New South Wales, Australia.

Where do you live please?

The D programme is now up to 6 plus!!! Very expensive to upgrade, so I'm not going to at the moment. Love Chris, Newcastle, Australia.

6 comments
sewist1 by sewist1 edited 26 Sep 2016

Chris do you mean the Designer 11 or maybe the #1(Orchidea) The Designer1 came out with the floppy disk and then was upgradeable to USB.
Helen

SewOften by SewOften 26 Sep 2016

I am U.S.A ~ Ohio. I am remaining optimistic that I can get this machine to embroider. I found an external floppy drive on ebay, when it gets here......we'll find out if I can make it do what it was designed for.

mops by mops 26 Sep 2016

I did not upgrade my Designer 1 to USB, my daughter still uses it with floppies.
The computer that runs on Windows 98 might have an inbuilt floppy drive and 3D would work well on it.

pennifold by pennifold 26 Sep 2016

Yes, Helen I meant the Husqvarna 11 it was the one before the Designer 1 and had Quilter on it somewhere. I had solid cards with designs on it. My Designer 1 that I have now has the USB port in it and I LOVE IT! Love Chris

sewist1 by sewist1 27 Sep 2016

Chris the Designer 1 was before the Designer 11. It was the star of the Brisbane Craft show in April 1999. I put a deposit down at the Show and paid some off it monthly. They were quite slow getting them into Australia the Dealers only received a few of them at a time and you were on a waiting list. I finally went to pick mine up on 5th October, 1999. On a receipt dated 21.7.99 the dealer wrote that they were starting to come through at last.
People who had bought the previous top of the line - the Orchidea in a certain time frame before the Designer 1 was released were able to trade-up and the complete cost of the Orchidea was deducted from the price of the D1. That was because they had not been told that the D1 was in the pipeline. love Helen

sewist1 by sewist1 28 Sep 2016

I think the confusion is between the Quilt Designer 11 which didn't have embroidery and the Designer 2 which did have the embroidery capability. Strange they named two machines so similarly.

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by katydid 25 Sep 2016

I don't have a clue, but I have faith in other to help you. Good luck! Kay

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by sewist1 25 Sep 2016

DO you have the dongle with the 3D software? Husqvarna has downloads to allow you to run the 3D on later versions of Windows :

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SewOften by SewOften 26 Sep 2016

I do have the dongle, I found an external floppy drive....time will tell the tale!

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by sewist1 25 Sep 2016

Could be as simple as the floppy disk drive needing cleaning. I still have a D1 with a floppy drive. In the past when I have had the "general disk error" and still couldn't get it to read by jiggling the disk around a bit I use a floppy disk drive cleaner similar to these:

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SewOften by SewOften 26 Sep 2016

Ok, I tried the in-and -out repeatedly trick, but it didn't work. Close examination revealed a pristine drive. It is clean as a whistle. Also cleaned the arm "plug". The fact that I get a message at all is a good indicator that it will work with the right hocus pocus. Anxiously awaiting arrival of the external floppy.

sewist1 by sewist1 26 Sep 2016

The disk cavity might appear pristine as mine does but you can't tell if the "heads" need cleaning. The oxide coating on disks can leave a deposit on the heads. Here is one of many articles on maintenance of floppy disk drives.
http://www.tpub.com/neets/book23/...

The external floppy works with your computer not the machine. You still have the problem of getting the machine drive to read any floppy disks you write.

sewist1 by sewist1 26 Sep 2016

You might be interested in this from lakeacres in July 2014:

"by lakeacres 15 Jul 2014


+6
Well we chose to purchase and run a floppy disk cleaner through my sewing machine and it seems to be working. Yippee. I will say that if I was to choose which new cheaper machine I would have purchased it would have been the Brother machine. But since the old one is now working and does a wonderful job at embroidery I think that I will stay with it for a while I am kind of bummed that I am not getting something new though. Oh well."

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by SewOften 25 Sep 2016

Yes!!!! Finally a forum where others understand my situation. The reviews were excellent for this machine, but I have never had these complexities when it comes to making something work. I have been trying to figure this out for a month by myself and wondered if it's going to be worth the aggravation to go so backward in technology. I am going to try the external hard drive. Thank you all for your wonderful and encouraging insight.

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crafter2243 by crafter2243 25 Sep 2016

When I joined this group I knew nothing about machine embroidery. Since it was a used machine I had no support either. I can not tell you how much this group of people has helped me learn. Sometimes just reading the posts and you will learn. Never be afraid to ask, because we have all been there and no question is a stupid one.

Now go ahead and click on the green flower (on the right side) of all the answers you got and watch them turn orange. That is a way of thanking them by giving a flower

crafter2243 by crafter2243 25 Sep 2016

Would you mind telling us where you are located.

airyfairy by airyfairy 26 Sep 2016

Angie, I was exactly the same. An aged second hand machine with no instructions. Cuties are the best

SewOften by SewOften 26 Sep 2016

OH Thank you!!! I love flowers for everyone!! This blog is the BEST. I have tried several others and got no response, I thought I made a huge mistake with this machine.

SewOften by SewOften 26 Sep 2016

In Ohio, USA

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by mops Moderator 25 Sep 2016

My daughter now has my old Designer1 and she uses it frequently. With the 3D Pro software I also gave her and the original floppies ans some with my own designs. Software works well on an older computer that has Vista as its operating system.
I have no idea why your machine does not recognise the original diskettes that came with the machine ( 3 fonts and a collection of designs if I remember rightly). I know I sometimes had to take the floppy out and insert it again to have the machine recognise it as it did not always click right into place. But I guess you tried that.

I kept some floppies which I use on my Ruby, with the help of an external disk drive, which is slower than using a flash drive, but why copy them from the floppy to a flash drive when it works.

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SewOften by SewOften 25 Sep 2016

I am getting an external drive. This is quite a learning curve. Since the machine is responding to the floppy when it's inserted into the machine, I am hoping the drive works. It's good to have someone familiar to help. Thank you.

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by dragonflyer 25 Sep 2016

I see you have some answers...just wanted to welcome you to Cute...come back to this thread and let us know how you make out...or if you still need additional information...

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SewOften by SewOften 25 Sep 2016

Thanks for checking back. I am getting more insight, faster than I imagined!

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by grammaheh1 25 Sep 2016

The embroidery machine that I use is a D1. . To use the 3D embroidery you must have an old 32 bit computer that used the XP operating system with a floppy disk drive in the computer or an external floppy disk drive. .. . The software will not work on any of the new computers. Try loading the floppy again, and if that does not work unload it and try again. If your D1 will not recognize the floppy at all you will not be able to use it to do embroidery. .As mentioned by others an external floppy disk drive is not expensive. Gail

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SewOften by SewOften 25 Sep 2016

Thank you. This is sort of frustrating. If I have an external floppy drive, do I still need an old computer?

crafter2243 by crafter2243 25 Sep 2016

No you do not. The drive will be connected via the USB port. You just need to know how to move files

SewOften by SewOften 25 Sep 2016

There are a lot of notes from the original owner about files. There is also a section dedicated to computer files. There are pictures of everything. I'll look and see if I can understand any of it before the external drive gets here. I am so excited to be able to talk about this!! Thank you!

SewOften by SewOften 25 Sep 2016

P.S. This is quite a learning curve! I love the sound of the machine when it runs. I took a flashlight and looked into the floppy drive....it looks brand new. And the the threader, cutting button, fix button, and the ability to run a machine without a foot pedal are all great things to me.

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by crafter2243 Moderator 25 Sep 2016

Again Welcome to Cute
You should not have a large output of cash to get to use your machine. It may be more difficult to get floppy disks now a days. I am glad you received some answers and I hope you solve your problem.

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SewOften by SewOften 25 Sep 2016

They seem to be available on ebay. I will be thrilled if the disks that I have work and I can do some block embroidery. But so far, no luck.

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by rachap 25 Sep 2016

That was my first Viking and convinced me that it was very user friendly. If you can find one,buy an external disc drive and you should be able to use it. I was trying to remember how it worked and may have some instructions but my sewing room is in a reorganization so I will keep my eyes open as I go through it. Viking is several years past supporting 3D but if you bought it with the machine you can still use it but you must have the dongle.

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SewOften by SewOften 25 Sep 2016

I bought the machine to do some light embroidery. It had to be tuned up to run, the throat place had to be replaced. The lights had to be replaced. and now I am trying the external drive. I can tell by the notebook/owners manual it was a well loved machine, but I don't know if it's gonna run the embroidery disks. I am grateful for this format, Thank you!

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by sharonleekesner 25 Sep 2016

I had a Designer I years ago and when I traded it for the Designer SE my dealer bought me an external floppy drive so I could use all those floppies I had made for the Designer 1. Last time I looked you could get one online for $14 or less. Might be worth your while to check that out. Also had a friend that had her Designer 1 converted from floppy drive to USB port. That would probably cost more.

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SewOften by SewOften 25 Sep 2016

Thanks for your insight. I am so glad to be able to talk to someone who knows what I'm dealing with. I am ordering an external drive. I have looked into upgrading the floppy to usb, but I have read reviews that say it slows down the machine when it embroiders.

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