I first posted this yesterday, but have received no responses.  Although my
BIOS reads the presence of the A drive, and it shows up in device manager as
working properly together with the floppy disk controller, I cannot access
it.  Since my first posting I replaced the floppy disk controller driver
files (hsflop.pdr and ios.vxd) with fresh copies from the Win 98 CD.  As I
stated in my earlier posting, I bought a new floppy drive and cable which
did not fix the problem.  I keep getting the message that "Drive A is not
ready, Cancel/Retry".  I checked device manager in safe mode and there not
multiples of the drive or the floppy disk controller.  There are no yellow
exclamation points in device manager.  During POST in the boot I don't get
"Drive failure" error which I would get if the drive didn't work or the
cable was not pin 1 to pin 1.  The drive activity LED does not stay on all
the time, but does light up when I try to access the drive.  When I try to
access it the sound is like that of a car with a weak battery turning over.
If the original drive were dead, the new one would have run, but it also
sounded like a car with a weak battery turning over.  So if a new drive and
a new cable don't solve this problem, and fresh floppy disk controller
driver files don't do it, where else or what else is there?  I have used
brand new formatted floppies, so it isn't just one screwed up floppy.  It
will not work no matter how many different floppies I try.  It worked and
then it didn't.  System file checker does not show any corrupt or deleted
system files, but I replaced the floppy disk controller drivers anyway.  If
I try to look at drive A in "my computer" it causes "my computer" to freeze
up so I have to close it using ctrl/alt/del. Looking at the other drives in
"my computer" does not cause this problem.  I did a google search, but did
not find anything particularly useful.  Most people don't pay much attention
to the A drive because it is so elementary and always there.  Thanks for
your help.  Joel

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