Cannot access my floppy drive

Folks: I am getting an error message all the time when I try to access my 3 1/2" floppy drive. "Diskette write protect tab must be closed" . The tab IS closed. I tried different floppies and even changed the drive for a known good one. Same result. Any ideas how to fix this? No ! marks or ? marks in device manager. Thanks.

 

What operating system is this?

Do ye have an old dos boot disk? If so, insert that disk, and reboot, making sure that the bios is set to check the floppy drive first.

Or, you just need to make sure that the floppy drive is cleaned.

Another thing to try, is skipping windows altogether, and seeing if the command prompt helps.

Via, START, then RUN, then typeing in:

xp/2k cmd (press enter).
9x (95/98/me): command.com (press enter).

type in:

dir a: press enter. Does the "A" drive get acessed, and list the contents of the drive?

 

Sounds like the Properties of Drive A have been set to Read Only... I think that this setting is in Control Panel>Admin. Tools.... maybe not ... I just poked around in there and couldn't find anything for A: drive. Somehow, the A: properties are set to read only. You said you tried other drives and you get the same result. I think that some BIOS's also have a 'Read Only' setting for floppy drives. Maybe try a new floppy data cable.

hopperdave2000

 

Thanks for your responses. I tried those commands but they are not accepted. I cannot read or write anything to the floppies. When I try to format a floppy it tells me "invalid media or track 0 bad, disk unusable" or "file system raw". When I try to boot from a good tested bootable floppy it tells me it cannot read DOS (or something like that). I tried uninstalling the floppy disk controller and re-installing. Still the same. In CMOS it is recognized as 1.44Mb floppy drive. Any new ideas? Thanx.

 

Friends: I believe I solved it. Hopperdave2000 hit it right on the head when he told me to try a new cable. I did, and everything works normally now. Thanks a lot guys!!!!

 

I have a 390E that is reporting that the floppy drive is inaccessible because of an i/o error. Do you have any ideas how I might fix that error?