When attempting to read drive A: or a floppy diskette in Microsoft Windows, you may receive the message The disk in drive A is not formatted. Do you want to format it now? or A:\ is not accessible. The device is not ready.

This message is generated when Windows cannot read a floppy diskette because it’s bad, there’s no floppy diskette in the drive, or the floppy drive is bad. Make sure a floppy diskette is in the computer. Unless a floppy diskette is in the computer, you will receive this error.

If a floppy diskette is in the computer and you get this error, try another diskette. If another floppy diskette works, unfortunately the diskette getting the error is bad. If no diskette works in the computer, unfortunately the drive is bad.

  • Why can’t my computer read a floppy diskette?
  • How to troubleshoot floppy disk drive issues.
  • See our floppy disk and floppy drive definitions for further information on each of these terms.
  • Floppy drive help and support.