i have windows xp. i inserted a floppy in the floppy drive to save a word document but i got a message saying that there was no i.d. the devise status says that my floppy is working properly but a few seconds after inserting the floppy disk i got that weird message. i found this thing that allowed me to scan the floppy drive ( it said it would test its ability to read and write floppys) i put in a floppy then begin the test. the green light turn on and when the test is about 70% completed the floppy drive begins to make some noises and stop at 89% or sometimes 90% percent. i tried repeating the test about 20 times but it always stop at the same place. can anybody help me. i really need the floppy drive

You could try re-formatting the floppy disk, but it could also be a hardware issue. First, right click on the floppy drive when a disc is in it, and be sure its a disc you can erase. Then hit "format". If it gets stuck on that, try another disc. If this also gets stuck, your floppy drive could be physically broken. I go to www.newegg.com for most of my computer parts, they should have a cheap floppy drive should you need one. They aren't bad to install either. Hope it helps, give a post if you need more ;)
Dave

Better yet, a USB floppy disk drive. Wally World (Walmart) for 30 bucks. Cheap, a snap to install, if it breaks, drop it in the trash and grab another.

i tried refformating the floppy disk but it would not work because when i tried clicking or rightclicking on the floppy drive the hour glass would appear but it would never go away. i then tried doing it in the command line. it said the the file system was RAW and that the new file system was FAT and then it said the disk was unusable. i tried using another floppy but the same thing happened. mmm i guess i am going to have to buy another floppy disk drive.

Flopy drives from Newegg are $11 shipped for either black, white, or beige. A USB one is great, but also 3x the price. But may I suggest this? Get yourself a USB flash drive. For around $15 at Best Buy or another electronics store, you can get 128 mb of storage. The only drawback is that the comp needs to have a USB port, and Ive seen some older machines without them. They are backwards compatable with USB 1.1, so any USB port will work. Heres a 128 mb one at Newegg, but they also have a 256 mb one for $17 shipped as well.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820211220
Hope it helps.
Dave

thankyou for all the help i decided that the best option for me was to buy a usb floppy drive. i am currently taking computer classes at college and i really need a floppy drive to save work for the classes. if it wasn't for those classes then a usb flash drive would have been perfectly fine. once again thankyou for all the help

Glad you figured it all out. Good luck with your classes.
Dave