floppy drive

I have seen this a couple times myself on new systems.

For ALI chipsets in particular, you need to have the IDE bus driver installed for Windows to be able to use the floppy.

Also, in BIOS settings, you need to have the switch set to report floppy drives to Windows at least until your floppy is working properly.

Likewise, don't disable the search for new flopy drives option in Device manager / Performance / File system.

Can you boot from a Floppy?
This is the easiest way to see if it is a Windows, or a hardware problem.

If you cannot boot from the floppy, or access the floppy from a DOS prompt boot, then you have a hardware problem.

Chas

I assume that you have verified the hardware by booting from a floppy disk.

If not, please do so, as this will verify whether it is a hardware or Windows problem.

Yes when Windows accesses the floppy drive, the drive will attempt to access the disk, and the access light will light.

The problem is that Windows cannot understand the data that is coming to it from the drive controller.

The IDE bus driver for the motherboard must be installed for Windows to be able to understand the data from the floppy.

Also, make sure that in the BIOS settings that you have it set to report new drives to windows,
and that the switch on system properties/performance/file system/floppy drive
is set to detect new floppy drives.
You need these switches set until Windows has "properly" detected and setup the driver for the floppy drive.

Chas