A drive acting up

[char0811]

My a drive is acting up. Whenever I try to open a disk, I get a message saying "The disk in drive A is not formatted, Do you want to format it now?" . All my disks are formatted, I was just using one a few days ago. I put in a test disk and decided to just format it, but it wouldn't even format. Now I can't open any disks. My brother says he has the same problem with his computer at work. I think maybe it's a Windows bug, but I couldn't find a fix for it....does anyone know what the problem may be?

[Randy_tx]

Your floppy drive controller drivers in Win might be corrupt...Go to Control Panel/System/Device Manager and arrow down to "Floppy Disk controllers"....then REMOVE it......now go to Control Panel/Add New Hardware and let Windows "find" the floppy drive controller again and reinstall the Win drivers ....hopefully that will fix it.

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"As hard as a rock & dumb as a brick"...Windows CEMeNT

[Paleo Pete]

It might also need cleaning. If the heads are dirty and it can't read, that may cause an error message like that. Cleaning kits are available in most retail stores that carry computer/electronic supplies.

If the drive is old, the heads may be out of alignment, I would think that may be even more likely, except that it won't format either. Try a cleaning kit, and the advice above also, if neither works you might have to replace the drive. And remove it in Safe Mode, so you can remove all copies if duplicates are there.

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[char0811]

Thanks for the great advice! It worked, turns out my floppy drive was just dirty, thanks again!