floppy disk is INSTALLED,but computer does not"see"

i am helping someone fix their computer. everything has been checked out:viruses,adware,updated,etc,.

--although there is a floppy disk drive,that is original hardware,the
computer is not "seeing" it.

--i checked device manager,all +
( no question marks or exclamantion marks)

--"my computer" shows just the one cd drive

--i did a hardware scan....did not detect floppy drive


its an ibm pen3 laptop winxp


thanks

 

The drive doesn't show up in device manager or My Computer. Does it show up it BIOS? No hard drive in My Computer either??

 

i checked my bios setup(bare in mind i am very unconfident/inexperienced
tampering with bios changes)


i sort of looked around and expanded this and that in bios(being careful
not to make changes)


i saw the cd rom mentioned,but not the 1.44mb floppy drive. i have a 1.44mb
disk actually in the computer right now so physicaly speaking,the computer
has a 1.44 mb disk drive.

i saw something in bios option called "Quick" boot as contrasted to the option for a disnogstic boot.

again,i place the 1.44 disk in the 1.44 floppy disk drive,but the computer can not read the disk nor recognize there is a 1.44mb drive. i tried RUN and LOOK IN but the drive is not there either.