I have been facing the same problem for over a year. I tried to find a
solution by posting on this and other forums, also tried getting a solution from MS and Dell support and talking to other "experts" in the field with no results. I even tried changing few FDs without fixing the problem.

This is what I did. Boot in safe mode. If the floppy drive (FD) responds in safe mode then there is no problem with the FD. (If not change FD). Then the problem is one of your installed softwares - which is somehow interacting badly with the OS and hardware. You have to uninstall each program in sequence and find out the bad apple.

From my experience: un-install any and all Symantic (Norton) Software programs eg NAV, ND etc, most probably your problem will go away. (That is what fixed m
y problem).

Aftab

On Fri, 20 Dec 2002 14:13:59 -0600, Arthur Allen <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Hello nospin group,
>I have a gateway pentium 90 with intel 586 pci motherboard. The
>panasonic floppy quit reading suddenly. In device manager says it
>is working properly.
>
>Also have a Dell Dimension 4400 with home XP so thought I could
>switch drives and see if it might be a cable. Put the floppy from the
>Dell into the gateway and it was the same. Put the drive from the
>gateway into the Dell and XP wanted to format the disk then after
>clicking on format it said it could not format it.
>
>Put the Dell floppy back into the Dell and now it does not read a
>disk. The plugs on the Dell can only go one way. The ribbon on the
>gateway could be install wrong.
>
>Now I have two floppy drives that do not work.
>Help Please  what is happening??
>
Thank you
>
>Art Allen
>[log in to unmask]
>
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