When I try to use my Floppy Drive I get the following message:
A:\ is not accessible
The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error.

A check in Device Manager indicated that both the Floppy Disk Controller and
Floppy Disk Drive are working properly.

Thinking that there was a problem with the old one I pruchase a new one, made by Sony, with the same result when I tried to use it.
The cable connection have been checked and they appear to be correct.
My motherboard is an Asus A8V Deluxe and apart from the floppy drive I have a Zip drive and a CD/DVD Drive. Two Hard Drives are connected to the motherboard and I have 1000MB of memory and an AMD Athlon 64 3000 SKT939 CPU.
Could anyone kindly suggest as to how I could correct the problem.

Hi ernesthagger,

I'm going to move this question to the Hardware section of the forum, which will get you more exposure to the kinds of members that know about hardware issues such as this.

Before I do that though, I'll make the following suggestions. You've swapped out the drive so that suggests that the drive isn't at fault. So it's either:

a) The IDE cable
- try connecting a different connector on the cable to the drive;
- check that the red stripe on the cable is facing pin 1 on the motherboard socket (usually pointing towards the centre of the motherboard) and that it is facing the power connector (or pin 1 if it is labelled) on the drive;
- try using a different power connector (most PCs have two power connectors suitable for use with a floppy drive;
- try a different IDE cable.

b) The motherboard or floppy drive controller
- pretty hard to test that without replacing the motherboard in the PC or trying the IDE cable in a different PC (we've already proved that the floppy drive itself is OK)

c) The driver
- Floppy drive technology hasn't changed for about 15 years so the Windows driver is really generic and I've never heard of any modern system where you had to load a Windows driver in order for the floppy drive to work. Having said that, it could still be corrupted in some way. Delete the floppy drive and floppy drive controller from Device Manager and reboot the PC. Windows will automatically re-detect the devices if they are working properly and will install the drivers for them again.

Let us know if that helps

P.S. I'm assuming, of course, that you've already tried a different floppy disk to prove that it's not the disk itself that is at fault?!

Many thanks for the suggestions. I have spoken to me son who lives in London about them as he does all the work on my computer. He confirms that he checked that the cable connections were correct and also carried out the procedure suggested under item c). He will be visiting us in about a weeks time when he will try the other suggestions and another IDE cable.

Ernest Hagger.

OK Ernest, thanks for the update