This may have been someone's idea of virus protection, mis-identifying the
diskette drive in the CMOS setup to effectively disable it.  boot the pc,
and when the 'press del to enter setup' message appears, press the del key,
and in the primary setup screen, change the diskette drive to be high
capacity 3 1/2 inch, and it will read your diskettes correctly.  If you
continue to have problems, open the case.  The ribbon cable for the diskette
drive has to attached at the end most connector for A drive, after the half
twist you will see in the ribbon.  If the drive is on the middle connector,
the diskette is B, not A.  I don't think you will find this to be the case,
but I might as well mention it.
Tom Turak

-----Original Message-----
From: Terrence Nolley [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, July 21, 2003 3:17 PM

            I recently come across an old Dell Dimension P133v.  My problem,
whenever I attempt to install a document from a floppy (HD 1.44 MB), I
receive the error "This disk is not formatted, would you like to format it
now".  I know for a fact there is nothing wrong with the diskette itself
(I've used it several times on other workstations)  After opening the MY
COMPUTER shortcut on the Windows 98 desktop, I notice the Floppy Drive is
labeled "A: drive 5 ¼" and the capacity is only 360 KB.  What's odd, the
floppy drive itself can physically only accept a 3 ½ inch diskette.  I
replace the Floppy drive with a known good 3 ½ inch Floppy drive and receive
the same results.  Is this a Disk Controller limitation or am I overlooking
something obvious?  Thanks in advance.
 
Terrence 

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