This is a follow on from 'TechNet copy of Win 7 U x86 suddenly boots to a blank screen with "this is not a genuine copy of Windows".'Having re-installed Win 7 Ultimate x86 I now have a phantom 5 1/4" B: floppy drive. The A: floppy works. The B: floppy does not show up in the BIOS but does show up in "fsutil".fsutil shows the B: floppy as 5 1/4" which would be great, cos I need one for an IBM PC 5150 (Original PC) that i'm fixing. :)In "Computer" the B: icon even shows a 5 1/4" floppy disk.EDIT: I've booted into x64 and the phantom 5 1/4" B: floppy drive is there too.

Wow, I haven't seen a 5-1/4" floppy for decades...Chances are your BIOS is telling the system that it's there. You might want to re-review the BIOS settings.-Noel

Wow, I haven't seen a 5-1/4" floppy for decades...Chances are your BIOS is telling the system that it's there. You might want to re-review the BIOS settings.-Noel I'll check the bios later. What intrigues me is that Windows 7 has the 5 1/4" floppy icon!Francis

Thought I was in a twilight zone or something but when I saw John in here, I thought, what the heck LOL. Ok, from a command prompt type subst and see if it lists any virtual redirection. If nothing there, then have you EVER installed a 3rd party program like VM Back (virtual floppy disk program) or created virtual floppies in VMWare or any other virtual workstation or server? If not, then at this point I'm out of ideas if the floppy drive controller is disabled in bios.MCSE, MCSA, MCDST [If this post helps to resolve your issue, please click the "Mark as Answer" or "Helpful" button at the top of this message. By marking a post as Answered, or Helpful you help others find the answer faster.]

Thought I was in a twilight zone or something but when I saw John in here, I thought, what the heck LOL. Ok, from a command prompt type subst and see if it lists any virtual redirection. If nothing there, then have you EVER installed a 3rd party program like VM Back (virtual floppy disk program) or created virtual floppies in VMWare or any other virtual workstation or server? If not, then at this point I'm out of ideas if the floppy drive controller is disabled in bios. subst shows nothing. The floppy controller is enabled. I have an A: floppy drive (I like floppies) enabled and it shows up in the first bios screen. No B: shows up. I haven't used any Virtual software.I inserted a floppy in the A: drive and was able to access it from "Computer". Leaving in the floppy, I tried accessing the B: drive. I got an "insert disk into B: drive" message.

I did some experimenting. I plugged in a USB 3 1/2" floppy drive which showed up as the F: drive. The A: and B: were still there. I alternated a floppy disk between A: and F: and tried accessing the B: drive each time. It asked for a disk. Now the interesting part, I removed the USB drive and the phantom B: disappeared.It's getting late here so I'll try tomorrow adding the USB drive again and see what happens.