floppy disk drive

I cannot get my floppy disk drive to work. When I double click on my floppy disk drive icon, an error message appears saying that:

<center>"a:/ is not accessable
The system cannot read from the specified device"</center>

How can fix this problem?

 

that message usually means the disk you are trying to use has gone bad.


Have you tried a different disk or tried this disk on a different machine?

did you recently make any changes to your hardware(add memory, etc)? if so the cables could have been accidentaly disconnected/loosened/installed upside down, etc.

 

You don,t mention anything about your O.S. or when the failure occured. If possible close down the computer to DOS. If unable to then restart and press F8. You have to catch it just right and you will enter the start up options. If u can select Command Prompt only. When u get there type A: then hit enter. put a floppy in type dir hit enter and you should then see the directory of the disk on the screen. If not it looks like your floppy drive may have fallen over. If it does read let the Forum know and we will take it from there.

 

Thanks for the advice. I tried it but it didn't seem to work, and I don't really have any idea how to restore my floppy disk drive if it has 'fallen over'. Could you tell me how to do this?

 

How do you mean 'It didnt seem to work' I take it you managed to get to the C: prompt (Command prompt) Then to the A: prompt and tried to access your floppy drive. Please describe the exact message when you did so.

Also when was the drive last active/working.

 

did you try another disk or this disk in another machine as I suggested?

 

If have determined that it is not a bad disk then the next most probable thing is that the drive is dirty. You can get a special floppy drive cleaner but a new floppy drive on www.pricegrabber.com starts at $8.00 so why bother/

 

I've tried a number of disks but none of them work. The little green light turns on when the computer is attempting to read from the floppy disk drive, so the connection must be fine. Is there another reason that may be causing the failure?

 

Hi there, that problem has just arose on my friends machine, but it is only intermittent. When saving a file it will work fine, the next time the message A:\ is not accessible the system cannot read from the specified drive. Any one any ideas other than what has been mentioned. As it works intermittently surely it can't be anything major.

Thanks

 

What if I removed the floppy drive via: Start - settings - control panel - system - device manager - restart would Windows redetect the floppy and re-install it. Or is doing this a waste of time? And won't do any good.

Cheers