This drive doesn't work when connected to a Windows 2000 PC. How do I make it work?

Hello vann,

As alienintelligence has stated, a floppy drive is one of the most
basic pieces of hardware that every PC OS will support by default
without adding any drivers.  Also, alienintelligence suggests that the
drive may be broken.  Having worked in a PC repair shop selling used
parts, I can tell you that it is fairly unlikely that a floppy drive
is broken, but it does occasionally happen.  Off the top of my head, I
suspect that you did not enable the floppy drive in the BIOS.  Here
are the steps I would use to troubleshoot the drive:

1. Go into the BIOS setup when your computer first starts and make sure
   it is enabled.  You will need to figure out which button gets you
   into the BIOS setup.  A lot of times it's [DELETE] or [F2].
   Hopefully if it is something else it will tell you what it is
   around the time it is counting off the RAM, etc.  Make sure that
   you choose the right type of drive.  There will be high and low
   density version of 3.5" and 5.25" inch drives.
2. Look at the drive while the computer is on and check to see if the
   light is staying on continuously.  If the light is on continuously,
   it is a good indication that the cable is plugged in upside down.
   Look carefully on the ribbon cable for a red stripe on one side.
   The red stripe should be near pin 1 on the drive.  Hopefully there
   will be a tiny 1 printed on the drive as well.
3. If you get this far and it still doesn't work, it's time to start
   searching for broken components.  Determining whether a component
   is broken or not is not easy to do unless you have other components
   to test it against.  I would first try the cable.  Basically you
   are going to need either another cable or another drive to test it.
4. Test to see if the drive works in another computer.  You'll, of
   course, need to make sure it is enabled in the other computer's
   BIOS setup as well.

If all of these steps fail, you probably have a broken drive on your
hands.  Another rare possibility is that the motherboard's floppy
drive controller is broken.  Here are some links to extra information
about troubleshooting floppy drives:

Floppy Drive Troubleshooting (very old, ignore most of the OS specific stuff)
http://www.tufftest.com/pctbx-content-3.htm

Another troubleshooting page
http://www.pcmech.com/faq/contents.cgi?toc=support

Good luck getting your drive to work!

Are we to presume the drive works elsewhere?
A floppy drive is what is considered to be a
"standard" piece of hardware on Win2k. Drivers
would exist in the base install for this drive
if it is working.

Have you gone to the 'Device Manager' to
verify it's existence?

-AI

Enabling the floppy in the BIOS, 
duh, I should have thought of that
one also. Good point.

On the note of bad floppies, it
must be the dust that is flying
around here in southern cali,
but I see ALOT of dead floppy
drives. That's not to say "dead"
but not functioning properly.
But then, I do mess with alot
of servers. High heat, dusty,
etc.

-AI