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

[sharky]

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

 

[norton850]

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??

 

[sharky]

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.