My floppy drive has stopped working. I have installed a new unit, thinking that the old one had given up the ghost, but the new one does not work. When the floppy is inserted I hear a couple of clicks then the whole system locks up.
Running Windows 98se
Any help appreciated.

There's not much to go on here. Get into the BIOS setup and make sure that:

a) The floppy drive is detected
b) It's the right type, probably 3.5" 1.44Mbytes
c) It's the first drive in the boot sequence

If all this is correct then you should be able to boot from a DOS (or Win 9x) floppy. Even a non-boot floppy should give you something like "Non-system disk or disk error". I've never found a BIOS yet that can't read a floppy drive so this really ought to work. If it doesn't then it's looking bad. Possible diagnoses are hardware failure or a scrambled BIOS. Check your manual for a DIP switch setting that clears the BIOS. If you can get the floppy to work at all then you can reflash modern BIOS chips with the latest version; this will be free from the PC manufacture's website. Unfortunately this same facility allows virus writers to scramble your BIOS and reduce your PC to junk. If you haven't got a virus checker then PLEASE get one. FPROT for DOS and AVG for Win9x are both free.

Many thanks Felix. I have discovered that the computer will boot from the floppy, it is only in Windows that it will not work. I will look at and try your other suggestions.

Once again, many thanks.
Chris.

If the PC will boot from a floppy disk then the problem isn't in the BIOS; it's in Windows. Your next place to look is in Device Manager. You should see a floppy drive controller and a floppy drive. Both should be working correctly and not disabled in your hardware profile. If you see a yellow exclamation mark or a red cross then remove the offending device from your system, reboot and let Windows re-install it. If something is missing use the Add New Hardware wizard to find it.

Have you got a tape drive in your PC? Some older ones mimic a floppy drive and that could cause trouble. Disconnect it to find out.