Help please, in plain English. I have lost the a:\drive(floppy disc drive). I can find eny reference or drive letters to it on my computer.I don't use it very often so I don't know how or when I lost it.Can anyone help with how to find/restore it.

First, try a couple of things. Go to Device Manager (Control Panel, System Icon, Hardware Tab, look for Device Manager.) You should see Floppy Disk Controller and Floppy Disk Drive (two separate entries). If these are present, right click on either and look at Properties. If you have a problem with them, it will be explained here. If they do show problems, you might want to try right clicking on the Floppy Disk Drive and selecting "delete". This should remove the floppy disk software. Then, reboot your machine. XP should detect and reinstall your floppy, and you should see it in My Computer. If this doesn't work, you may have a defective drive. New drives are inexpensive, so it's not the end of the world. Hope this helps a little. Good luck.

Thanks George, Have found Floppy Disc Controller, but Floppy Disc Drive is still missing from the list in the Device Manager

I own an HP Pavillion and my floppy Disk Drive does not appear in the My Computer field. im running Windows XP Home. Problem is more fully explained in MS Knowledge Base articles 817196 & 812489. Neither suggested fix works nor are the registry entries present nor is the floppy driver corrupt,replaced several times. Articles are correct in that floppy disappeared after attaching USB flash memory reader from Lacie. No response from Lacie to phone calss or e-mails. Error appears in Device Manager as Other Devices on Location Floppy Disk Drive. Memory cards appear as Disk Drives as follows SMSC USB 2 HS-CF USB Device SMSC USB 2 HS-MS USB Device SMSC USB 2 HS-SD/MMC USB Device SMSC USB 2 HS-SM USB Device no other markings are found onthe Lacie case I offer these notes to see if they can help pls send any different fixes to e-mail