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I am getting a "Not ready reading drive" error trying to use the drive

Explanation: While attempting to access the floppy disk, you get an error stating that the drive is not ready.

Diagnosis: The most common cause of this problem is simply trying to use the drive with no disk in it. It can also be caused by a problem with the drive itself or a bad disk.

Recommendation:

  • Make sure that there is a disk in the drive and that for a 5.25" drive, the drive door is closed.
  • Make sure the floppy drive types are properly set up in the system BIOS.
  • Try a different disk and see if the problem goes away. If it does, then the disk you have is damaged or unformatted.
  • If the problem persists for multiple disks then the drive has a problem of some sort. Troubleshoot it here.

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