How to fix Floppy drive

**Adamaris** · 30-07-2009

I don't know whats wrong with my Windows XP floppy drive. From last couple of days whenever i insert any floppy in the drive, it gives me error saying,"The disk in drive A is not formatted. Do you want to format it now?” or “A:\ is not accessible." I know this era is about CDs and DVDs but some times i need floppy as well. Please help me in fixing this floppy drive error.

**Hardwareman** · 30-07-2009

The floppy drive is slowly, but surely, becoming obsolete. Floppy drives do tend to get corrupted very easily and data can be lost in bad sectors. Anyways, if you are getting the The disk in drive A is not formatted. Do you want to format it now error than most probably this problem occurs on disks that do not contain a media descriptor byte in the BIOS parameter block (BPB) of the boot sector. Some older preformatted floppy disks do not contain a media descriptor byte. Older product disks may also not have the media descriptor byte.To resolve this problem, re-format the floppy disk with Windows XP.

**Maxforu** · 30-07-2009

The above error occurs when Windows is unable to read the floppy diskette because the floppy diskette is bad, there is no floppy diskette in the drive, or the floppy drive is bad. To solve this error reinsert the disk, making sure it goes in all the way or the floppy drive may need to be replaced.If your floppy is still unusable, difficult to read and write data, and you can accept the data loss, you may need to format it as a last resort. Formatting will delete all data on the floppy permanently.

**deoWo** · 30-07-2009

Now a days floppy disk drives became so cheap that it is not worthwhile fixing one when it becomes defective: just throw it away and buy a new one.In the simplest case, you may have tried to read one type of disk using the wrong screen. If things look worse than that, cleaning the drive heads is a good thing to try.The best way to check the drive is to swap it with a similar drive in another PC. If your drive works in the other PC and not in yours it's likely you have a configuration problem.