Welcome, Dvd. Sorry about the length of time getting back to you. Was
out of town. Trying to catch up with the groups while the news servers
are acting up has been especially challenging ;)

No lights means one of two things:

The light on the drive has burned out (if drive makes noise indicating
*some* activity, ignore the absence of the light).

The unit is not receiving power. This can be due to a poor connection or
the drive has failed.

Regarding BIOS: Every system does a POST (power on self test) at
startup. It runs a little system check before searching for an operating
system to load. By default (on *most* systems), the presence of a floppy
drive is included in the POST. The light on the floppy disk drive will
flicker as the system probes and finds it. You may also hear a system
"beep" at that time. This is why I asked if you saw any activity with
the drive at startup.

The settings in BIOS can be changed to:
- *not* check for a floppy drive
- to beep or not beep
- enable/disable the floppy drive

When you insert a floppy disk to the drive, you should also see some
kind of reaction from the drive. At least a little spinup in response to
the presence of the floppy disk being inserted.

If you are seeing no responses or activity, the drive may be dead. Good
news: they are inexpensive to replace.

Hope this helps,
Sharon F
MS MVP [Shell/User]


On Thu, 26 Jun 2003 18:58:49 -0400, "Dvd" <madweedgardener@hotmail.com>
wrote:
>Thank you!
>
>No lights showing -- broken?
>
>Don't know much about BIOS
>
>"Sharon F" <sharonf@mvps.org> wrote in message
>news:7cpmfv0r66t2sjbveinpvnisnbkh3qq3ce@4ax.com.. .
>> On Wed, 25 Jun 2003 18:20:09 -0400, "Dvd"
>> <madweedgardener@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> >My a: drive has disapeared. It's not showing in Windows Explorer and it's
>no
>> >longer available on the right click "send to" option.
>> >
>> >Any help much appreciated.
>>
>> Is the drive broken? Does BIOS see it during POST? Any LED lights
>> showing power to the drive blinking during startup?
>>
>> Sharon F
>> MS MVP/ Shell User
>>
>